Moscow and the Arab League are calling for a vote at the United Nations on a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza
Russia and Arab League countries gathered for an Arab-Russian forum in Morocco on Wednesday and called for a vote at the United Nations on a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and called on the United States to stop using its veto. “We hope that the Security Council will raise its voice in favor of a resolution” to end the war between Israel and Hamas, Russian diplomat chief Sergei Lavrov said at a planned vote this evening in New York.
It is also “urgent to create a Palestinian state,” he said, and even “to accelerate the process,” because, according to “some sources, our Western partners are developing hidden projects to separate the West Bank from Gaza.” Arab League deputy secretary-general Hossam Zaki called for “there should be no veto by a permanent member,” referring to the American position on Dec. 8 in an earlier Security Council vote.
At the war-marked opening of the forum, Lavrov denounced that “daily violence in Gaza has reached unprecedented and catastrophic proportions.” “Our numerous attempts” to “persuade the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution calling for a permanent ceasefire are met with strong resistance from the United States,” Lavrov lamented.
In Cairo, Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit called for an “immediate ceasefire” amid a “war of destruction and ethnic cleansing” in Gaza. Regarding Russia, he said he appreciated “those countries that made the decision from the beginning to put themselves on the right side of history” in the face of a problem that he said “did not start on October 7.” “The activity [israélienne des territoires palestiniens] is the core of the problem,” he said, advocating for “a two-state solution” and the “creation as quickly as possible of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.”