The United Nations Security Council has voted for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza after the United States lifted its veto threat in response to growing Arab pressure.

Washington cast a rare abstention as the ceasefire resolution, drafted by Britain, was adopted 14-0 by the 15-member council.

The US decision to allow the Security Council to call for a ceasefire in a formal resolution undercuts the Israelis' continued military operations in Gaza and left Israeli officials fuming.

Washington's abstention came as a surprise to other delegations, however, because Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, had personally negotiated the text at UN headquarters in New York with her counterparts from Britain and France, David Miliband and Bernard Kouchner.

Shortly before the vote, Mr Miliband had suggested he expected a unanimous result.

The abstention, nevertheless, marked an about-face by the United States just days after it blocked any Security Council action to bring the fighting to an end.

It represents a rare break between Israel and the United States in the dying days of the Bush Administration, which has failed to make progress towards its goal of a two-state solution in the Middle East.

Gabriela Shalev, Israel's UN ambassador, told the council Israel had been left "no choice but to act in self-defence" against Hamas rocket strikes.

"Responsibility for the current hostilities lies squarely with Hamas," she said. "The international community must focus its efforts on the cessation of Hamas's terrorist activity."

The resolution "stresses the urgency of and calls for an immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza."

The text welcomes the Egyptian peace initiative, but leaves the details to be worked out in further talks.

Instead, it calls on governments to "intensify efforts to provide arrangements and guarantees in Gaza in order to sustain a durable ceasefire and calm, including to prevent illicit trafficking in arms and ammunition and to ensure the sustained reopening of the crossing points."

The resolution also encourages "tangible steps towards intra-Palestinian reconciliation." But the text does not mention Hamas, which seized power in Gaza in 2007, by name.

David Miliband, the British foreign secretary, who crafted the compromise in three days of talks in the UN basement, declared that the UN had "served its purpose of speaking loudly and clearly, and authoritatively and unequivocally."

The vote was greeted with relief by Arab foreign ministers, who had travelled to New York to demand UN action and were eager to get a result before their governments were denounced by irate Muslims at Friday prayers.

Riad Malki, the Palestinian Authority foreign minister, lamented the Security Council's repeated delays in adopting a ceasefire resolution, saying 760 Palestinians had died in the 13-day Israeli onslaught, 40% of them women and children.

"Israel must now put an end to its aggression against the Palestinian people and fully withdraw its forces from the Gaza Strip," Mr Malki said.

Dr Rice said the United States supported the substance of the resolution but would have preferred to await the outcome of the peace efforts in Egypt.

"The United States thought it important to see the outcomes of the Egyptian mediation effort in order to see what the resolution may have been supporting. That is why we chose to abstain," she said. "But after a great deal of consideration, we decided that this resolution - the text of which we support, the goals of which we support, and the objectives that we fully support - should indeed be allowed to go forward."

She said: "The resolution is a step towards our goals. It reflects the international community's concerb about the situation in Gaza and its desire for a sustainable peace in Gaza."

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