UNITED NATIONS – America vetoed a proposal for a Security Council resolution that would call on Israel to end its military operation in Gaza.

Eleven Council members supported the proposed resolution, which was sponsored by Algeria, Pakistan, and Tunisia, while Britain, Germany, and Romania abstained.

“The resolution is lopsided and unbalanced,” said the American ambassador, John Danforth. “Because of this lack of balance, because of these omissions, the resolution lacks credibility and deserves a ‘no’ vote.”

Earlier, Secretary of State Powell reaffirmed Israel’s right to defend itself against the shooting of Qassam missiles, but added he hoped that whatever Prime Minster Sharon does “is proportionate to the threat that Israel is facing.” Speaking to reporters on his way to Brazil, he added, “I hope that this operation can come to a conclusion quickly.”

Israel killed Bashir al-Dibsh, the leader of the Al Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad. He was one of seven Palestinian Arabs killed yesterday in Gaza, including Eman al-Hams, a 13-year old schoolgirl.

Military sources quoted by the Israeli press said the girl, who was shot near Rafah, was carrying a suspicious bag thought to be containing explosives. Further examination revealed the bag contained nothing but schoolbooks.

These events were on the seventh day of “Operation Days of Repentance,” which began after Qassam rockets killed two infants in the Israeli town of Sderot on September 29. So far 82 Palestinian Arabs were killed in the operation, which targets the sources of the crude Qassam missiles.

“Even the Palestinian Authority admits that out of some 80 killed, at least 65 were combatants,” Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Dan Gillerman, told reporters after yesterday’s vote.

The resolution did not mention “the undisputed fact that Qassam rockets have no military purpose, that they are crude, imprecise devices of terror designed to kill civilians,” Mr. Danforth said in his explanation of America’s vote. The death of civilians, especially children, is always tragic, he said.

However, he continued, “Where the death of civilians is the sole purpose of the attack, it is not only tragic, it is reprehensible.” Addressing reporters later, he added that Russia’s proposed resolution to unify the definition of terrorism makes the deliberate killing of civilians regardless of the cause illegal.

“This is another sad day for the Security Council,” the Palestinian Arab observer, Nasser Al Qidwa, told reporters after the vote. Blaming America, he remarked that this was the seventh veto since 1976 regarding what he called “the occupied Palestinian territories,” and the 29th veto on the Palestinian Arab issue.

Regardless, Mr. Al Kidwa said his next attempt to unify the Council would be on what he called “the Wall.” Last July, an advisory opinion by the Hague-based International Court of Justice deemed Israel’s barrier illegal and called for it to be dismantled, and the Palestinian Arabs hope to persuade the council to affirm that decision.

Meanwhile, Israeli military officials and diplomats began to backtrack from their earlier assertion that a Qassam missile was loaded on a U.N.-marked ambulance shown in a grainy video shot on October 1 by an Israeli army drone.

Israeli Defense Forces officials admitted yesterday that the object seen in the video may indeed be a stretcher, as was claimed by Peter Hansen, the head of the agency known as Unrwa that operates the ambulance.

Nevertheless, the IDF Operations Directorate chief, a brigadier-general, Israel Ziv, insisted in a Tel Aviv press conference that Unrwa employees “are exploiting the organization’s vehicles in order to support terror-related activities.”

The IDF released earlier shots of the same video, which showed what they claimed to be a group of terrorists hiding a mine to explode under Israeli tanks. The ambulance hovered in the vicinity “providing cover for combatants planting bombs,” General Ziv said. Some military analysts assumed that the object seen loaded on the ambulance was part of the terrorist activity, but others were not as sure, he added.

Israeli officials said they would make further statements, and perhaps an apology, only after they reexamine the allegations and after four U.N. officials sent by Secretary-General Annan finish their own inquiry.

At the same time, General Ziv said that at least 13 Palestinian Arab employees of Unrwa who were arrested in the last four years on terrorist charges will be indicted soon. The move was meant to bolster Israel’s claim that the agency cooperates with terrorists. On Monday, Mr. Hansen told Canadian TV that he has no problem with the fact that his agency employs Hamas members.