The UN Security Council on Friday adopted a watered-down resolution calling for immediately speeding aid deliveries to hungry and desperate civilians in Gaza, but without 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 US and Russia abstaining. The US abstention avoided a third US veto of a Gaza resolution following Hamas’ surprise Oct. 7 attacks inside Israel. Russia wanted the stronger language restored; the US did not.
However, “it was the Christmas miracle we were all hoping for,” said United Arab Emirates (UAE) Ambassador to the UN Lana Nusseibeh, who sponsored the resolution.
Photo: AFP
She said that it would send a signal to the people in Gaza that the Security Council was working to alleviate their suffering.
The resolution culminated a week and a half of high-level diplomacy by the US, the UAE on behalf of Arab nations and others. The vote, initially scheduled for Monday, was pushed back each day until Friday.
“This was tough, but we got there,” US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the council.
She said that 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 towards a lasting peace.”
“It is hard to overstate how urgent this is,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “This resolution speaks to the severity of this crisis, and it calls on us all to do more.”
The vote came immediately after the US vetoed a Russian amendment that would have restored the call to immediately suspend hostilities. That vote was 10 countries in favor, the US against and four abstentions,
Russian Ambassador tot he UN Vassily Nebenzia called the resolution “entirely toothless” and accused the US 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 if it had not been backed by a number of Arab countries, he said.
Thus the resolution was stripped of 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 fighting.
Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour 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,” Mansour said. “It must be implemented and must be accompanied by massive pressure for an immediate ceasefire.”
Hamas called the resolution “an insufficient step” that “doesn’t meet the requirements of the catastrophic state caused by the terrorist military machine in Gaza.”
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