CAIRO: The failure of the UN Security Council to agree on a permanent ceasefire in Gaza is equivalent to providing Israel with a “license to kill,” Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit has said.

The Security Council’s resolution, which was adopted on Friday to boost humanitarian aid to Gaza, was a step in the right direction, but it fell short of the aspired goal to achieve a full ceasefire in the besieged enclave, he added.

The humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza needs serious and firm action beyond “tranquilizers to absorb the international public opinion’s wrath,” Aboul Gheit said.

The UN Security Council approved a toned-down resolution that called for urgent steps to “immediately allow safe, unhindered, and expanded humanitarian access and to create the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities” after a week of vote delays and intense negotiations to avoid a veto by the US.

Israel’s intense aerial campaign and ground offensive have left the majority of Gaza in ruins and pushed one of the most densely populated regions in the world into a serious humanitarian crisis.

The rising death toll reached 20,000 as the war entered its third month.