New York, New York - The UN General Assembly on Wednesday overwhelmingly adopted a resolution calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Gaza, as the US and Israel rejected the measure.

The resolution – adopted by a vote of 158-9, with 13 abstentions – urges "an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire," and "the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages." The wording is similar to a text vetoed by Washington in the Security Council last month.

At that time, Washington used its veto power on the Council – as it has before – to shield Israel, which has waged an all-out assault on the people of Gaza since October 2023.

The US has insisted on the idea of making a ceasefire conditional on the release of all Israeli hostages in Gaza, claiming otherwise that Hamas has no incentive to free those in captivity. Deputy US Ambassador Robert Wood repeated that position Wednesday, saying it would be "shameful and wrong" to adopt the text.

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Ahead of the vote, Israel's UN envoy Danny Danon said: "The resolutions before the assembly today are beyond logic. (...) The vote today is not a vote for compassion. It is a vote for complicity."

The General Assembly often finds itself taking up measures that cannot get through the Security Council, which has been largely paralyzed on Gaza as well as Ukraine due to internal politics.

The resolution, which is non-binding, demands "immediate access" to widespread humanitarian aid for the citizens of Gaza, especially in the besieged north of the territory.

Dozens of representatives of UN member states addressed the Assembly before the vote to offer their support to the Palestinians.

"Gaza doesn't exist anymore. It is destroyed," said Slovenia's UN envoy Samuel Zbogar. "History is the harshest critic of inaction."

That criticism was echoed by Algeria's deputy UN ambassador Nacim Gaouaoui, who said: "The price of silence and failure in the face of the Palestinian tragedy is a very heavy price, and it will be heavier tomorrow."

Israel has killed at least 44,805 people in Gaza since October 2023, according to data from the local health ministry. The British medical journal Lancet and other experts believe the true number to be far greater, upwards of 186,000 as of July 2024.

"Gaza today is the bleeding heart of Palestine," Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour said last week during the first day of debate in the Assembly's special session on the issue.

"The images of our children burning in tents, with no food in their bellies and no hopes and no horizon for the future, and after having endured pain and loss for more than a year, should haunt the conscience of the world and prompt action to end this nightmare," he said, calling for an end to the "impunity."

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After Wednesday's vote, he said "we will keep knocking on the doors of the Security Council and the General Assembly until we see an immediate and unconditional ceasefire put in place."

The Gaza resolution calls on UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to present "proposals on how the United Nations could help to advance accountability" by using existing mechanisms or creating new ones based on past experience. The Assembly, for example, created an international mechanism to gather evidence of crimes committed in Syria starting from the outbreak of civil war in 2011.

A second resolution calling on Israel to respect the mandate of the UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) and allow it to continue its operations was passed Wednesday by a vote of 159-9 with 11 abstentions.

Israel has voted to ban the organization starting January 28. At the start of this year, the US suspended additional funding for the agency after unsubstantiated Israel claims that a handful of UNRWA employees had taken part in Hamas' October 7 attack.