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- December 23, 2023
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The United States abstained Friday from a United Nations resolution on calls for humanitarian pauses to allow for aid to reach Gaza, where the death toll surpassed 20,000 this week, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The US decision not to vote—a rarity for Security Council members—came after nearly a week of debate and 11th-hour negotiations.
The resolution was adopted by a vote of 13-0 with 2 abstentions by the US and Russia. Before the vote, Russia had proposed an amendment reinserting stronger language around a ceasefire that was vetoed by the US.
The resolution demands “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip for a sufficient number of days to enable full, rapid, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access.” US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Friday that the resolution “provided a glimmer of hope amongst a sea of unimaginable suffering.” A day before the vote, a UN-backed global hunger monitoring group warned that the entire population of Gaza is at “an imminent risk of famine.”
Thomas-Greenfield noted that it took “many days and many, many long nights of negotiating to get this right.” A major issue that kept the resolution from coming to a vote for nearly a week concerned language around a “cessation of hostilities.” An early draft of the resolution had called for “an urgent and sustainable cessation of hostilities.” The Biden Administration, which opposes a ceasefire, opposed the language.
The version passed Friday watered the statement down to call for “urgent steps” to “create the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities.” Though she thanked the US “for their complete engagement in trying to find a resolution that meets the moment,” United Arab Emirates ambassador Lana Nusseibeh, who sponsored the resolution, said after the vote that the resolution “is not a perfect text,” adding, “We know only a cease-fire will stop the suffering.”
In her comments after the UN Security Council vote, Thomas-Greenfield accused Russia of hypocrisy, calling it “a country that has also created conditions that they are complaining about now in their unprovoked war in Ukraine.”
In advance of the vote, Israel reportedly intensified its aerial assault of the territory, which in just over two months has become one of the most deadly and destructive military campaigns in recent history. Following the passage of the resolution, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Israel’s ongoing offensive was the “real problem” creating “massive obstacles” to the provision of humanitarian aid.
The intensification comes as multiple news outlets released analyses documenting the extent of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. On Thursday, a New York Times analysis of visual evidence found that over the course of the first six weeks of the war, Israel “routinely used one of its biggest and most destructive bombs in areas it designated safe for civilians.” The Times reported that the bombs “posed a pervasive threat to civilians seeking safety across south Gaza.”
A similar analysis by CNN and artificial intelligence company Synthetaic published Friday found 500 impact craters indicating blasts from 2,000-pound bombs, which are rarely ever used in densely populated areas like Gaza. (The US used just one bomb of that type during its war against ISIS in Iraq.)
Last week, President Joe Biden acknowledged that Israel’s conduct during the war was sapping international support. “They’re starting to lose that support by indiscriminate bombing that takes place,” he said.
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