The UN Security Council approved this Friday by majority a resolution to allow an increase in humanitarian aid in Gaza, in a decision that had 13 votes in favor and the abstention of the United States and Russia. Despite the agreement after a week of delays and tough negotiations, the decision ratifies Washington’s ironclad stance regarding the war with a diluted text that avoided talking about a ceasefire and that considerably lowers the initial goals of the resolution.
What was approved requests “urgent measures to immediately allow safe and unimpeded humanitarian access”, in addition to “creating the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities”, a considerable variation with respect to the “urgent suspension of hostilities” mentioned in the statement. previous presented by the United Arab Emirates and supported by several of the European countries at the table, including Russia, in favor of a ceasefire.
The other battlehorse was the control by the UN of the entry of humanitarian aid to the strip, a point of contention for the US due to the fear of Israel, its main partner in the area, that weapons and military equipment would sneak in. smuggled to help Hamas militants. It will, finally, be the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, who will be in charge of appointing a coordinator responsible for “facilitating, coordinating, monitoring and verifying” that the aid shipment is of a humanitarian nature, who would also “consult all parties relevant”.
The resolution, which is binding in nature, does not mean, by any means, that the war will stop. The fear that the US would once again exercise its veto power over the resolution forced the search for a minimum agreement to alleviate the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. What was seen this Friday in New York makes it clear that Washington remains alone in its support for Israel. Not even the contained fury of their Arab and European colleagues within the Security Council during the week made them change their position of unconditional support for the land and air invasion of Gaza, with a provisional toll of more than 20,000 dead, according to the Palestinian health authorities. The vote should have taken place days ago, but it had not been possible to reach an agreement until now.
Finally, on Thursday night the white smoke occurred. The US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, acknowledged before the press that they had worked “diligently” to launch “a mechanism that supports humanitarian assistance” together with Egypt and the rest of the coalition of Arab countries. , without sharing how his country would vote. They kept that ace up their sleeve until the end, in a new unmistakable sign of her commitment to Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
The explanation of the agreement was in the text that began to circulate shortly after, where the ceasefire request that the US vetoed on December 8 was no longer included. Instead, it called for “decisive steps” to facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid, leaving a bittersweet feeling even after its ratification. “We know that this is not a perfect text. Only a ceasefire will stop the suffering,” said Lana Nusseibeh, the United Arab Emirates ambassador to the UN who has been leading the negotiations. Guterres, for his part, insisted on the urgency of “a humanitarian ceasefire” as something “necessary if we want humanitarian aid to be effective.”
Data from the organization he leads speaks of some 576,600 people in Gaza who have been completely left without food, and 100% of the population exposed to acute food insecurity, the most serious situation in the world at the moment. According to Steve Taravella, spokesperson for the World Food Programme, “the number of people facing catastrophic levels of hunger in Gaza is four times greater than the total number of people facing those levels of hunger worldwide. Taravella predicts that if the current pace of bombing and siege continues in Gaza, widespread famine will occur in February.
In addition to the weight of the more than 20,000 deaths on the Israeli army’s record, an analysis published by The New York Times assures that the forces commanded by Herzi Halevi used one of their bombs with the most destructive capacity to hit areas designated as safe for the Palestinian civilian population. This is an investigation focused on 2,000 videos in an area in the southern Gaza Strip where Palestinian civilians could presumably be safe.
In the analysis, Times journalists discovered earth sinkholes that could only have been caused by one-ton bombs. An Israeli army spokesman indicated that the priority is to destroy Hamas without causing civilian casualties, although issues of this type will have to be analyzed at “a later stage.”
This Friday they once again ordered the population of central Gaza to move south immediately as the advance of their troops continues in the north and south of the Palestinian territory. The evacuation order affects the Al Bureij area, next to a refugee camp.
