The UN General Assembly is scheduled to vote Tuesday on a non-binding resolution calling for “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire” in Gaza, a demand that the Security Council has so far failed to make.
The United States, one of the Security Council’s only five permanent members, used its veto on Friday to reject a draft text asking for a cease-fire, the latest hint of deadlock.
The Council took more than a month after the commencement of the war between Israel and Hamas terrorists to speak with one weak voice, calling for humanitarian “pauses” in the combat in mid-November after four rejected texts.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned that a “complete breakdown of public order” is on the horizon in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Many governments and human rights organizations condemned the Security Council’s failure last Friday, and Guterres said on Sunday that the Council’s authority and credibility had been “undermined.”
More than two months after Hamas fighters launched a brutal and unprecedented strike on Israeli soil on October 7, Israel continues to bombard Gaza.
Approximately 1,200 Israelis were killed in the initial strike, while the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza reports that 18,205 Palestinians have died as a result of Israel’s bombardment since then.
Since the start of the war, the UN has lost more than 100 of its own relief workers.
“There are those who cannot see reality as they should see it,” Palestinian ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour said on Friday after the US veto.
“But eventually they will cave in under the massive pressure of humanity from one corner of the globe to the other corner.”
‘Catastrophic’
To further pressure, Arab countries asked for a new extraordinary session of the General Assembly on Tuesday afternoon, immediately after more than a dozen Security Council ambassadors visited the Rafah border crossing.
The draft text, obtained by AFP, closely resembles the resolution that the United States blocked in the Security Council on Friday.
Concerned about the “catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip,” it “demands an immediate humanitarian ceasefire,” requests for civilian protection, humanitarian access, and the “immediate and unconditional” release of all hostages.
However, unlike the language adopted by the Assembly at the end of October, which called for a “immediate, durable, and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities,” it does not censure Hamas, which Israel and the US have repeatedly denounced.
The last resolution received 120 votes in favor, 14 votes opposed (including Israel and the US), and 45 abstentions.
With calls for a ceasefire increasing, the International Crisis Group’s Richard Gowan told AFP that “it is safe to assume that the majority will be greater” this time.
This may put the Assembly closer to the 140 or so countries (out of 193) who have consistently condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a result that the US saw as proof of Russia’s isolation.
“Nobody imagines that the General Assembly can persuade Israel to cease fire, just as it cannot order Putin to leave Ukraine,” despite majority support for a non-binding text. “The goal is to make the US more nervous,” Gowan explained.
Although the Security Council is “at the heart of our work in peace and security,” according to Stephane Dujarric, the secretary-general’s spokesperson, messages from the General Assembly “are also very important.”