U.N. approves watered-down resolution on aid to Gaza without call for suspension of hostilities
UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Security Council on Friday adopted a watered-down resolution calling for immediately speeding aid deliveries to hungry and desperate civilians in Gaza, but minus the original plea for an “urgent suspension of hostilities” between Israel and Hamas.
The long-delayed vote in the 15-member council was 13-0, with the United States and Russia abstaining. The U.S. abstention avoided a third American veto of a Gaza resolution following Hamas’ surprise Oct. 7 attacks in Israel. Russia wanted the stronger language restored; the U.S. did not.
Still, “it was the Christmas miracle we were all hoping for,” said United Arab Emirates Ambassador Lana Nusseibeh, who sponsored the resolution. She said it would send a signal to the people in Gaza that the Security Council is working to alleviate their suffering.
The resolution culminated a week and a half of high-level diplomacy by the United States; the UAE, acting on behalf of Arab nations; and others. The vote, initially scheduled for Monday, was pushed back each day.
A relieved U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the council: “This was tough, but we got there.”
She said the vote bolsters efforts “to alleviate this humanitarian crisis, to get life-saving assistance into Gaza and to get hostages out of Gaza, to push for the protection of innocent civilians and humanitarian workers and to work toward a lasting peace.”
“It is hard to overstate how urgent this is,” Thomas-Greenfield added. “This resolution speaks to the severity of this crisis, and it calls on us all to do more.”
The vote came immediately after the United States vetoed a Russian amendment that would have restored the call to immediately suspend hostilities. Ten countries voted in favor of that amendment, the U.S. voted against it, and there were four abstentions.
Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia called the resolution “entirely toothless” and accused the United States of “shameful, cynical and irresponsible conduct” and resorting to tactics “of gross pressure, blackmail and twisting arms.”
He said the resolution “would essentially be giving the Israeli armed forces complete freedom of movement for the clearing of the Gaza Strip.” Russia would have vetoed it, he said, if it hadn’t been supported by a number of Arab countries.
Thus the resolution was stripped of its key provision with teeth — the call for “the urgent suspension of hostilities to allow safe and unhindered humanitarian access, and for urgent steps towards a sustainable cessation of hostilities.”
Instead, it calls “for urgent steps to immediately allow safe, unhindered and expanded humanitarian access, and also for creating the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities.” The steps are not defined, but diplomats said it was the council’s first reference to stopping the fighting.
Ambassador Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. envoy, said it took the Security Council 75 days “to finally utter the words ‘cessation of hostilities,’” stressing that the Palestinians and Arab nations supported the Russian amendment.
“This resolution is a step in the right direction” because of its important humanitarian provisions, Mansour said. “It must be implemented and must be accompanied by massive pressure for an immediate cease-fire.”
Israel’s U.N. deputy ambassador Brett Jonathan Miller criticized the Security Council for not condemning Hamas for its Oct. 7 attacks, in which about 1,200 people were killed and about 240 taken hostage.
The resolution more generally “deplores all attacks against civilians and civilian objects as well as all violence and hostilities against civilians, and all acts of terrorism.” It demands the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.
On a key sticking point concerning aid deliveries, the resolution eliminated a previous request for the U.N. “to exclusively monitor all humanitarian relief consignments to Gaza provided through land, sea and air routes” by outside parties to confirm their humanitarian nature.
It substituted a request to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to quickly appoint a coordinator to monitor relief deliveries to Gaza that are not from the parties to the conflict — Israel and Hamas — to verify that they are humanitarian goods. It asks the coordinator to establish a “mechanism” to speed aid deliveries and demands that Israel and Hamas cooperate with the coordinator.
Miller said Israel is willing to increase the number of aid trucks entering Gaza, and the only roadblock is “the U.N.’s ability to accept them.” He stressed that “any enhancement of U.N. aid monitoring cannot be done at the expense of Israel’s security inspections.”
Guterres has said Gaza faces “a humanitarian catastrophe” and warned that a total collapse of the humanitarian support system would lead to “a complete breakdown of public order and increased pressure for mass displacement into Egypt.”
In Bethlehem, the West Bank town revered as Jesus’ birthplace, Christmas is all but canceled, in solidarity with Palestinians’ suffering in Gaza.
For a Thai farmworker taken hostage by Hamas militants Oct. 7, memories of Israel and Gaza are of love, grief and heartbreak for those she left behind.
According to a report released Thursday by 23 U.N. and humanitarian agencies, Gaza’s entire population of 2.2 million is in a food crisis or worse, and 576,600 are at the “catastrophic” starvation level. With supplies to Gaza cut off except for a small trickle, 90% of the population is regularly going without food for a full day, the U.N. World Food Program has said.
More than half a million people in Gaza are starving because not enough food is entering the territory amid the Israel-Hamas war, the United Nations reports.
More than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, since the war started.
Hamas controls the Gaza Strip, and its Health Ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths. Thousands more Palestinians lie buried under the rubble of Gaza, the U.N. estimates.
Security Council resolutions are legally binding, but in practice many parties choose to ignore the body’s requests for action. General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding, though they are a significant barometer of world opinion.
The Palestinian cause has never had so much support. But some Palestinian Americans say the movement has a messaging problem.
In its first unified action following the Hamas attacks, the Security Council on Nov. 15 adopted a resolution, with the U.S. abstaining, calling for “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses” in the fighting, unhindered aid deliveries to civilians and the unconditional release of all hostages.
The U.S. on Oct. 18 vetoed a Security Council resolution to condemn all violence against civilians in the Israel-Hamas war and to urge humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza. On Dec. 8, the U.S. vetoed a second council resolution, backed by almost all other council members and dozens of other nations, demanding an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza. The 193-member General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a similar resolution on Dec. 12 by a vote of 153-10, with 23 abstentions.
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