Acting along expected lines, the USA vetoed a United Nations Security Council draft resolution rejecting US President Donald Trump’s recent recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

However, the proposed measure was backed by the 14 other Security Council members, including many US allies, highlighting Washington’s increasing isolation over an issue that has triggered mass rallies in support of the Palestinians in major international cities, reported Al Jazeera.

“What’s troublesome to some people is that the United States had the courage and honesty to recognise a fundamental reality,” Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, said. 

“Jerusalem has been the political, cultural, and spiritual homeland of the Jewish people for thousands of years — they’ve had no other capital city,” she said.

“The United States has the sovereignty to determine where and whether we establish an embassy,” said Haley, describing the vote as an ‘insult’ that ‘won't be forgotten.’

Key US allies Britain, France, Italy, Japan and Ukraine were among the 14 countries in the 15-member council that backed the measure asserting that any decision on the status of Jerusalem ‘have no legal effect, are null and void and must be rescinded,’ reported Qatar Tribune.

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the UN, said: “It’s paradoxical that while we were waiting for a peace plan from the US, the administration instead decided to further obstruct peace and delay its realisation.

“The US decision encourages Israel to persist in its crimes against the Palestinian people and to continue its occupation of our territory. No rhetoric will hide this complacency in prolonging the occupation,” he added.

The Egyptian-drafted text reiterated the UN position on Jerusalem, affirming ‘that any decisions and actions which purport to have altered, the character, status or demographic composition of the Holy City of Jerusalem have no legal effect, are null and void and must be rescinded in compliance with relevant resolutions of the Security Council.’

The vote came less than two weeks after Trump's controversial speech, which reversed decades of US policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

Since the decision, at least nine Palestinians have been killed and more than 1,900 injured in protests in the occupied territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.