Status: 22.12.2023, 18:26 PM
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The UN Security Council is the most powerful UN body. © Loey Felipe/XinHua/dpa
According to the UN, one in four Palestinians in the Gaza Strip is facing starvation. A resolution passed with great difficulty is now intended to turn the tide for humanitarian aid.
NEW YORK - After days of wrangling, the UN Security Council has passed a resolution calling for an increase in humanitarian aid for some two million people in need in the Gaza Strip. The UN's most powerful body adopted a significantly watered-down compromise text in New York. The U.S. abstained.
Since the beginning of the week, it had looked as if Washington would use its veto power to protect the interests of its ally Israel. However, massive concessions by the negotiators prevented the decision from failing at the last second. A total of 13 of the 15 countries voted in favour of the text, with Russia abstaining alongside the United States.
The resolution, which is binding under international law, calls on Israel to "immediately allow safe and unhindered humanitarian access" to the Gaza Strip. The conditions for a sustainable cessation of violence must also be created.
UN Coordinator for the Control of Relief Supplies
On the contentious issue of how aid is to be controlled, the Council members agreed to appoint a responsible UN coordinator. In cooperation with all stakeholders, this should also ensure the acceleration of deliveries. The Council also calls for humanitarian supplies to flow into the Gaza Strip through all available border crossings.
Other passages, however, were deleted under pressure from the United States: a paragraph condemning "all violations of international humanitarian law, including all indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian objects" is no longer found in the resolution. There is also no immediate suspension of violence in order to enable aid deliveries, which was previously demanded.
A number of Council members were dissatisfied with the text because of the significant weakening. It remains to be seen how much influence the resolution will actually have. Despite their binding nature, the consequences for Israel in the event of non-compliance are likely to be manageable.
As a result of Israel's warfare over the past ten weeks, the humanitarian situation of the more than two million people in the Gaza Strip is dramatic. A recent UN study concludes that 577,000 people in the cordoned-off coastal strip fall into the most serious category of hunger. In the rest of the world combined, however, there are currently 129,000 people who are similarly threatened. Almost all people in the Gaza Strip suffer from hunger or displacement. Israel had sealed off and attacked the Gaza Strip after the horrific terrorist attack by the Islamist Hamas on October 7.
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Resistance from the U.S.
The U.S. government, in particular, had wrestled internally for a long time during the negotiation of the resolution, which had been introduced by the United Arab Emirates. According to reports, leading diplomats had already been prepared to abstain at the beginning of the week. But President Joe Biden had initially made the decision to veto it, despite a conversation on Tuesday with UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield. But then US Secretary of State Antony Blinken got further concessions in direct talks with his counterparts from the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, according to diplomats.
In recent weeks, two similar draft resolutions have failed due to opposition from the United States. Washington has always backed Israel, stating that incursions by resolution could jeopardize ongoing diplomatic efforts on the ground. So far, only a few weeks ago, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution on the conflict that is binding under international law with a humanitarian focus. The UN General Assembly, on the other hand, has twice passed resolutions calling for an end to the violence. However, the resolutions of this body are not binding, but rather symbolic.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres has also urged the UN Security Council to work for a humanitarian ceasefire with unusually harsh measures. In a recent letter to the Council, he referred to Article 99 of the UN Charter. This allows the Secretary-General to draw the Security Council's attention to "any matter which, in his opinion, may jeopardize the guarantee of international peace and security" - and has not been applied for decades, according to the UN. Dpa