After a week and a half of negotiations, the United Nations Security Council has approved a new resolution that “demands” the “large-scale” delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza and “urgently take” all necessary measures to do so and to “create the conditions for a lasting cessation of hostilities.”
The measure, presented by the United Arab Emirates and which had to be rewritten several times, has the favorable vote of 13 states and the abstention of the United States and Russia. Washington lifted its veto after the call to suspend hostilities was eliminated and Moscow, on the contrary, was pressing for a more forceful declaration.
Once the resolution was approved without vetoes, although lowered, it is its compliance – although obligatory – that appears complex.
The Israeli army is preparing to expand its operations within the strip, launching early this Saturday. After the resolution was approved, nighttime bombings were reported in Gaza. And hours before the UN Security Council met for the fifth time to discuss the crisis in Gaza, Israeli forces were expanding, in fact, the ground offensive with a new incursion into the center of Gaza and fighting throughout the enclave. , air attacks, artillery bombardments from north to south, even in key border cities for the passage of supplies.
From the United Nations itself, its Secretary General António Guterres also denounced last night that Israel is conducting a military operation in Gaza that “is creating massive obstacles to the distribution of humanitarian aid.”
“Why hasn’t aid [so far] been distributed well? Hamas gets part of it,” argued the spokesperson for Prime Minister Beniamin Netanyahu’s office before the press with a serious expression five hours before the resolution was approved. And the text of this does not include a condemnation of Hamas. Hamas is not even cited. But it does demand the “unconditional” release of hostages.
After 77 days of the war in Gaza, the death toll has already exceeded 20,000, including 8,000 children, according to Gaza authorities. And hunger affects more than half of the population of the strip, according to international agencies. The concern that the number will only increase is going to increase and a new truce that facilitates the delivery of that humanitarian aid is what few expect today.
On Thursday, after talks in Egypt, Hamas announced that it will no longer talk about the exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners as long as the Jewish State does not completely stop its military operation.
“Hamas uses the entire population [of Gaza] as a shield. And until Hamas does not release all the hostages there will be no peace,” the Israeli government reiterated yesterday.
Hamas sees the agreement as “insufficient”. The Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations concluded after the resolution that it is “a step in the right direction.” But in Israel there is also discussion about what to do in the post-Hamas. Netanyahu’s influential National Security Adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, published a column in a Saudi newspaper on Thursday in which he suggested that the “reformed” and also “moderate” Palestinian National Authority could lead the strip.
For now, the abstention of both Washington and Moscow from the resolution is what increases the pressure on Israel and Hamas to find an alternative to the war and the humanitarian crisis in which the strip is mired. This is how we look back to November 15, when the UN managed to approve its first resolution on the war between Israel and Hamas, also after four failed attempts. He then called for “urgent and prolonged humanitarian pauses and corridors across the strip” with Israel’s opposition. There were seven days of truce. Hostilities returned on December 1.
Furthermore, while waiting to see the effects of the new resolution, it is the violence on the border between Israel and Lebanon that also continues to escalate. Yesterday the Israel Defense Forces announced the death of a soldier in the north of the country. Hizbullah claimed responsibility for the attack. Lebanon warned that Israel must abide by UN resolutions to stop attacks by Shiite militia. But rocket alarms are already daily in Israel and the debate resounds day after day about whether a parallel incursion is inevitable.
