The United States has vetoed a Palestinian-drafted UN Security Council resolution seeking to bar Israel from extending a security fence deep into the West Bank.
The measure, which also would have denounced plans to build 600 new homes in Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories, won the support of 10 of the council's 15 members while four others abstained - Britain, Germany, Bulgaria and Cameroon.
But the "No" vote from Washington, one of the council's five permanent members with veto power, was enough to kill the resolution. Voting in favour were Angola, Chile, China, France, Guinea, Mexico, Pakistan, Russia, Spain and Syria.
Yesterday's veto follows by less than a month the US veto of an earlier Palestinian resolution demanding that Israel back away from a threat to "remove" Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
Palestinian UN envoy Nasser al-Kidwa said Arab states would now take the security wall measure to the 191-nation UN General Assembly, where the United States, Israel's closest ally, has no veto and the Palestinians enjoy strong support.
While Security Council texts can carry the force of international law, assembly resolutions simply represent the will of the international community.
"We have seen tonight the second US veto in less than a month that again casts a large shadow on the possibility for the United States to exercise the role of a mediator or a broker of the Middle East peace process," al-Kidwa said.