The UN Security Council will again discuss the Gaza war today, Tuesday, and will probably vote on a resolution presented by the United Arab Emirates to facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid into the Palestinian territory.
The session had been scheduled for Monday afternoon, but was first postponed for two hours and finally rescheduled for Tuesday to allow for last-minute negotiations over the text’s vocabulary, especially references to the cessation of hostilities.
The United States has already vetoed resolutions calling for a ceasefire in Gaza twice alone, arguing on one occasion that it did not recognize Israel’s right to defend itself and on another that it did not demand the release of all hostages held by Hamas as condition to cease fighting.
The resolution “calls for an urgent and sustained cessation of hostilities” that allows humanitarian access, and that is where the United States could raise objections, thus supporting its ally Israel, which opposes any type of truce on the grounds that it would serve to Hamas to rearm and organize.
Amnesty International has already asked in a message to the United States to accept this resolution because “any use of the veto will mean more killings, hunger and suffering,” in the words of its secretary general, Agnès Callamard on her X account (formerly Twitter), a message in which he copied President Joe Biden and the State Department.
Except for that phrase about the cessation of hostilities (or “suspension” as proposed by the US), the resolution focuses on the mechanisms to guarantee the entry of humanitarian aid, which should be monitored by the UN “for a period of one year”, and calls for the unconditional release of the hostages held by Hamas, but also an end to attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure.
The Security Council has already met six times to discuss the issue of Gaza, only once reaching a consensus on a resolution without vetoes to call for “urgent and prolonged humanitarian pauses” in the war. So, the United States opted to abstain.
The latest report from the Gaza Ministry of Health, controlled by Hamas, puts the dead at 19,453 and the injured at 52,286, 70 percent children and women, whose number may be higher because many bodies remain under the rubble or on roads since they began. the bombings by Israel on October 7, after the terrorist attacks by Hamas.
