The room of the UN Security Council, this Thursday, after a new delay in the vote was confirmed. SHANNON STAPLETON (Portal)
After intense negotiations that lasted almost a week, and after the United States finally lifted its veto on Thursday on a draft resolution to increase humanitarian aid to Gaza as the population of the Gaza Strip faces some risk of starvation, the UN Security Council decided this Friday The Council approved the text by a majority with 13 votes in favor and two abstentions, those of the United States and Russia. According to several Council members, this is a compromise solution in which the original intentions of the text have been reduced to the point of diluting them.
The cessation or suspension of hostilities to allow the importation of aid and a mechanism to monitor deliveries, the two pillars of the proposed resolution put forward by the United Arab Emirates a week ago, have each been watered down in vague initiatives (“necessary measures to “to facilitate the aid”)” and “a UN-appointed coordinator” of the distribution), which do not satisfy some Council members, such as Russia, and many others in the General Assembly.
The key provision called for “the urgent cessation of hostilities to allow safe and unhindered humanitarian access and the adoption of urgent measures for a sustainable cessation of hostilities.” Rather, the final wording calls for “urgent measures to immediately enable safe and unhindered humanitarian access and also to create the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities.” Diplomatic sources consulted by the AP agency welcomed this as the council's first indication of a cessation of hostilities.
All eyes were on Russian representative Vasili Nebenzia, who was unhappy with the thinning of the original text and put forward an amendment containing a call for a ceasefire, which was supported by ten council members but rejected by the United States. Russia agreed with the United States by abstaining from voting on the resolution, although for very different reasons. In addition to the diffuse demand for “urgent measures” to enable unhindered access to the necessary aid supplies, the establishment of a control mechanism by the UN for all crossing aid deliveries has been the subject of discussion since the Emirates presented the draft last Friday Patrols to prevent trucks from bringing in weapons or smuggled products. The United States, as Israel's voice in the Council, refused to approve this measure because it considered that it further complicated the distribution of aid, which is why the original request was converted into a call for the Secretary General, António Guterres, to him to appoint a coordinator responsible for “facilitating, coordinating, monitoring and verifying” that the cargo is only of a humanitarian nature. Israel has always resisted handing over this task to third parties.
Counter-clock talks by Secretary of State Antony Blinken with his counterparts from the Emirates – the only Arab country to sit on the council – and Egypt – through which aid flows into the Gaza Strip – were key to resolving existing differences. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Ambassador to the United Nations, made this clear after a closed session of the Council on Thursday afternoon. The US has been working “hard and diligently throughout the last week” with Egypt and the Emirates to ensure the implementation of a “mechanism to support the humanitarian assistance” that Gaza urgently needs. “We are ready to vote on it,” said the diplomat, who explained that the final text was the result of Blinken’s negotiations with Egypt and the Emirates, bypassing the other 13 members of the council, several of whom objected to being excluded. according to diplomatic sources.
The portent of the American vote was not clear – their abstention was enough to advance the resolution – although the veto that was ominously planned this week was ruled out on Thursday evening. “I'm not going to tell you how I'm going to vote,” Thomas-Greenfield said Thursday, adding that the United States “can support” the resolution if it were presented in the form it ultimately did, by they accepted his abstention. Security Council resolutions are theoretically binding and require at least nine yes votes and no veto power for their adoption.
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Several Council member countries, including Russia and France – both with veto power like the United States – were unhappy with recent corrections to the text, while diplomatic sources question how the entry of aid into Gaza will be ensured if they do so The fight doesn't stop. The concept of “cessation or suspension of hostilities” is a red line for the United States and Israel as it would only benefit Hamas. In addition, the new wording of the text “calls on all parties to comply with international humanitarian law and, in this sense, condemns all attacks on civilians and civilian objects, as well as all violence and hostilities against civilians, and all acts of terrorism.”
In two UN votes on the Gaza Strip, the USA was left alone in front of the world. The first was a draft ceasefire resolution from the Council, which he vetoed on December 8. Second, the rejection of another virtually identical resolution that was adopted by a large majority in the General Assembly four days later. At the time, only nine countries, including Israel, supported their rejection of the text. Despite the United States' notorious isolation in the United Nations over the war in Gaza – similar to Russia's isolation since the start of the war in Ukraine – the threat of its veto power has managed to bend the will of the Council, which in one The ambitious first proposal is expressed on a much larger scale.
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