UN approves watered-down resolution on aid to Gaza without call for suspension of hostilities

UNITED NATIONS: After many delays, the U.N. Security Council adopted a watered-down resolution Friday calling for immediately speeding up aid deliveries to desperate civilians in Gaza but without the original call for an “urgent suspension of hostilities” between Israel and Hamas.

The vote in the 15-member council was 13-0 with the United States and Russia abstaining. It followed a U.S. veto of a Russian amendment that would have restored the call for a suspension of hostilities. That vote was 10 members in favor, the U.S. against and four abstentions.

The revised text was negotiated during a week and a half of high-level diplomacy by the United States, the United Arab Emirates on behalf of Arab nations and others.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said late Thursday the United States, Israel’s closest ally, backed it. The U.S. abstention avoided a second U.S. veto of a Gaza resolution following Hamas’ surprise Oct. 7 attacks inside Israel.

Council members met behind closed doors on Thursday to discuss a revised draft resolution, then delayed the vote so they could consult their capitals on the significant changes, aimed at avoiding a U.S. veto. A new text with a few minor revisions was circulated Friday morning.

The circulation of the new draft culminated a week and a half of high-level negotiations involving U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Between Tuesday and Thursday, Blinken spoke to the foreign ministers of Egypt and the United Arab Emirates three times each as well as to the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Britain, France and Germany.

The vote, initially scheduled for Monday, has been delayed every day since then.
Rather than watered down, Thomas-Greenfield described the resolution as “strong” and said it “is fully supported by the Arab group that provides them what they feel is needed to get humanitarian assistance on the ground.”

But it was stripped of its key provision with teeth — a call for “the urgent suspension of hostilities to allow safe and unhindered humanitarian access, and for urgent steps towards a sustainable cessation of hostilities.”

Instead, it calls “for urgent steps to immediately allow safe and unhindered humanitarian access, and also for creating the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities.” The steps are not defined, but diplomats said if adopted this would mark the council’s first reference to stopping fighting.