1 of 5 | A Palestinian boy walks on the debris of a destroyed house after an Israeli airstrike in Rafah, Gaza amid the ongoing battles between Israel and Hamas on Sunday. Photo by Ismael Mohamad/UPI | License Photo
Dec. 19 (UPI) — The U.N. Security Council has again delayed a vote on a new resolution calling for a cease-fire in Gaza as the countries continue to negotiate the wording of the draft.
The vote on the United Arab Emirates’ draft was scheduled for 5 p.m. Tuesday but was again put on hold. The vote was initially scheduled for Monday evening, but was first delayed to Tuesday as consensus on draft wording could not be achieved with objections from the United States, which vetoed the last cease-fire resolution 10 days ago over its failure to condemn Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on Israel.
“We’re still working through the modalities of that,” National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby told reporters in Washington a few hours before the vote was delayed.
“It’s important for us that the rest of the world understand what’s at stake here and what Hamas did on the seventh of October and how Israel has a right to defend itself against those threats.”
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller similarly told reporters in a separate press conference that talks on the draft were “very much ongoing.” However, he wouldn’t say what needs to change for the United States to vote in favor of resolution.
“We would welcome a resolution that fully supports addressing the humanitarian needs of the people in Gaza,” he said.
Fielding another question concerning if Israel has asked the United States to again veto the resolution, he said they’ve been in discussions with the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but that “ultimately, we’ll make our own determination.
“And it will depend very much on what the final text of the resolution states,” he said.
The resolution is expected to call for an urgent and sustainable “suspension” of hostilities after being amended from “cessation of hostilities” to gain tentative backing from the United States.
Arab countries on the council working on the text said they were heartened that the White House was engaging on wording instead of going straight to a veto as it had done previously in response to votes on resolutions calling for an “urgent humanitarian cease-fire” on Dec. 8 and a “humanitarian pause” before that on Oct. 18.
The text of an updated draft being circulated by the United Arab Emirates early Tuesday calls for the “urgent suspension of hostilities to allow safe and unhindered humanitarian access and for urgent steps toward a sustainable cessation of hostilities,” Al Jazeera reported.
The binding resolution needs nine of the council’s 15 member countries to vote in favor for it to be adopted, but any of the five permanent members — the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China — can block it by exercising their veto power.
Six previous attempts to pass a resolution have failed due to vetoes exercised by one or more of the five permanent members.
The U.N. General Assembly has been more successful, with a gathering of the so-called 10th emergency special session last week voting 153-10 for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza, with a further 23 abstaining.
Prior to that, in October, the assembly passed a resolution calling for an “immediate, durable sustained humanitarian truce” in the fighting between Israel and Hamas, along with the unhindered provision of lifesaving aid to civilians.
The passage of the resolution by a 120-14 vote, with 45 abstentions, sparked a furious backlash from Jerusalem, primarily because a Canadian-proposed amendment to include explicit condemnation of Hamas and the taking of hostages was rejected.
However, neither of the resolutions produced any tangible result due to the fact UNGA resolutions are non-binding.
Displaced Palestinians who fled from fighting between Israel and Hamas in Khan Yunis take refuge in makeshift shelters in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on December 18, 2023. Photo by Ismael Mohamad/UPI | License Photo
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