Achi news desk-
For the first time in five months, a resolution calling for a ceasefire in the occupied Palestinian territory of Gaza sailed through the United Nations Security Council on Monday.
The decision was voted 14-0, with the United States abstaining from voting. In what was the fifth decision on the subject in as many months, this was only the second decision where the US did not use its veto powers. The only other occasion was last week when a veto by permanent members Russia and China defeated a resolution that Washington had sponsored.
The resolution, sponsored by Algeria – the only Arab nation currently on the Security Council – “demands an immediate ceasefire” for the ongoing Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
It further calls for a ceasefire that leads to a “lasting, sustainable ceasefire”. It also demands that Hamas and other militant groups operating in Gaza release the hostages seized in their attack on October 7, which triggered a massive Israeli military operation that has rendered over 70% of residential structures in Gaza uninhabitable and put almost every medical facility out of commission.
“The bloodshed has continued for far too long,” said Amar Bendjama, Algeria’s permanent representative to the United Nations. Countries such as Slovenia, Switzerland, Japan and South Korea co-sponsored the resolution.
The decision is the most sweeping global judgment on Israel’s actions, which have left nearly 35,000 Palestinians dead (mostly children) in Gaza and the West Bank – the latter of which had nothing to do with the October 7 attacks but which is a territory that faced more intense Israelis. aggression in 2023, even with over 700 Palestinians killed before the October 7 attacks.
In a post on social media website ‘X’ (previously Twitter), the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, demanded that the decision be implemented immediately.
“Failure would be unforgivable,” warned Guterres, whose global organization is also among the victims of Israel’s indiscriminate and widespread campaign of violence across all Palestinian territories after October 7, with dozens of UN staff killed and centers aid have been destroyed.
The Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, hoped the decision would prove to be a “turning point” in ending the war.
“Apologies to those the world has failed, to those who could have been saved but weren’t,” he said.
Hamas said it would participate positively in talks on the prisoner exchange arranged by Qatar. Past attempts to broker a deal through Qatar failed after Israel rejected a detailed and ill-advised peace plan proposed by Hamas to free thousands of Palestinians, including children, kidnapped by Israeli militants and held in prisons outside into Israel.
Could Israel turn on the United States?
With Israel repeatedly belittling US President Joe Biden for his calls for calm and restraint in the violent campaign in Gaza and for securing the provision of aid, he responded as expected to Monday’s vote.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Tel Aviv will no longer send a delegation to the United States to discuss its stated plans to attack Rafah. A sign of his intention to defy warnings from Biden and push ahead with plans to attack the last remaining refuge for Palestinians in Gaza.
In a statement, Netanyahu said the statement “gives Hamas hope that international pressure will allow them to accept a ceasefire without releasing our kidnappers.”
Netanyahu’s War Minister, Yoav Gallant, who was in Washington on a separate trip to the White House, claimed that Tel Aviv will continue the war until the hostages are released.
“We have no moral right to stop the war while hostages are still in Gaza,” he said outside the White House.
Last week, Netanyahu humiliated the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, when he announced the largest seizure of land in the West Bank after he arrived in Tel Aviv to discuss Israel’s attack on Rafah. The United States had weeks earlier imposed sanctions on Israeli settlers to expand into the West Bank. The act of Israeli settlers stealing Palestinian land in the West Bank, experts say, violates international law.
Even as Blinken tried desperately to dissuade Netanyahu from pushing into Rafah, Israeli forces struck parts of Rafah and unleashed horrific violence, with unarmed women and children taking refuge in the remains of the obliterated Al Shifa hospital.
‘Releasing a hostage for a truce’
US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who had denounced Russian and Chinese opposition over her “ambiguous” ceasefire decision last week and had warned that past calls to pressure Israel for truce jeopardized negotiations, that Hamas must now free hostages.
“A cease-fire can begin immediately with the release of the first hostage,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “This is the only route to a ceasefire.”
He called on all members of the United Nations to “unequivocally demand” that Hamas take the deal and release hostages.
