The United States has vetoed a UN Security Council resolution urging an immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and condemning an Israeli attack there that killed 19 Palestinian civilians.
Nine of the council's 15 members voted for the measure, while four abstained: Britain, Denmark, Japan and Slovakia.
But the "no" vote cast by U.S. Ambassador John Bolton - his second since he arrived at UN headquarters in August 2005 - was enough to kill the resolution. The Hamas-led Palestinian government said the veto showed that the United States backed Israel's action.
Mr Bolton's first veto, on July 13th, 2006, killed a resolution reacting to an earlier Israeli incursion in Gaza.
The United States has cast 82 vetoes in the United Nations' 61 years, and nine of the last 10 council vetoes, seven of which dealt with the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The measure defeated yesterday was backed by Arab, Islamic and non-aligned nations and formally proposed by Qatar.
It would have called on the Palestinian Authority to "take immediate and sustained action to bring an end to violence, including the firing of rockets on Israeli territory". It would have urged the international community to take steps to stabilize the situation, revive the Middle East peace process and consider "the possible establishment of an international mechanism" for the protection of civilians.
It also would have condemned Israeli military operations in Gaza and called on the Jewish state to withdraw all troops from Gaza and end its operations in all Palestinian lands.
Seven children and four women were among the dead in Wednesday's shelling of Beit Hanoun, for which Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has apologized, calling it an accidental "technical failure" by the Israeli military.
Ghazi Hamad, the Palestinian cabinet spokesman, said the veto was "a signal that the US had given legitimacy to the massacres and a green light to Israel to ... carry out more massacres".
Mr Bolton said Washington regretted the loss of life but was "disturbed at language in the resolution that is in many places biased against Israel and politically motivated". He said the suggestion of a mechanism to protect civilians would raise false hopes, and he was disturbed the measure made no mention of the word "terrorism" or the Palestinians' elected Hamas government, which refuses to acknowledge Israel's right to exist or renounce violence.