(LifeSiteNews) — After nearly six months and several attempts, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed a resolution on Monday calling for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip along with the release of all hostages and the removal of all obstacles for humanitarian aid.
After several previous vetoes of similar measures, the delegation representing the Biden administration, led by Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, abstained while the other 14 member states all voted in favor of the measure.
With this resolution, the UNSC demands “an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan respected by all parties leading to a lasting sustainable ceasefire.” The Muslim penitential season ends in two weeks.
The measure further “demands the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, as well as ensuring humanitarian access to address their medical and other humanitarian needs.”
The UNSC reemphasized the latter point, reiterating “its demand for the lifting of all barriers to the provision of humanitarian assistance at scale, in line with international humanitarian law.”
With Israel’s continued infliction of overwhelming damage and loss of civilian life, the Biden administration has shown signs of increasing rhetorical frustration with its state partner even as it has simultaneously continued to provide an uninterrupted weapons supply facilitating the ongoing onslaught.
READ: Israeli soldiers celebrate the ‘torturing, humiliating, and mocking’ of Palestinians on social media
“We did not agree with everything with the resolution,” Thomas-Greenfield said after the vote, explaining the reason the U.S. abstained. “Certain key edits were ignored, including our request to add a condemnation of Hamas.”
She also indicated that the U.S. abstention was due to the fact that the ceasefire was not explicitly conditioned on the release of hostages. “Any ceasefire must come with the release of all hostages,” she said.
Though the White House said declining to veto the resolution did not represent a change in policy toward the conflict, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office called this a “clear retreat” and cancelled sending a high-level delegation to Washington due to the Biden administration’s new position.
White House officials had requested to meet with Israeli officials to discuss the latter’s stated intention to attack Rafah in Southern Gaza, where an estimated 1.2 million displaced Palestinians have been sheltering.
Due to the concentration of civilians, the vast majority of whom are children and women, aid groups struggling to operate in the Strip have warned that any Israeli military advance in this location will bring about a “bloodbath” with humanitarian assistance already on the brink of collapse.
Last week, Netanyahu said Israel would attack Rafah with or without the support of the United States despite the fact that even retired Israeli major general Yitzhak Breck affirmed in November that “the minute” the U.S. ceases to provide the weapons necessary for this attack, “you can’t keep fighting. You have no capability … Everyone understands we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.”
‘This crisis is not over’; work for a permanent ceasefire remains
While much work still needs to be accomplished, the vote remains a “very, very significant” development, according to James Bays, diplomatic editor for Al Jazeera.
“The U.S. has used its veto three times,” he said. “This time, the U.S. let this pass.”
“Resolutions of the Security Council are international law. They are always seen as binding on all the member states of the United Nations,” Bays added.
French Ambassador Nicholas de Rivière affirmed “the adoption of this resolution demonstrates that the Security Council can still act when all of its members make the necessary effort to discharge their mandate.”
“This crisis is not over. Our council will have to remain mobilized and immediately get back to work,” he said. “After Ramadan, which ends in two weeks, it will have to establish a permanent ceasefire.”
Since the besieging of the Strip after the October 7 attack by Hamas, the Israelis have killed, according to reports, at least 33,138 people, including 32,682 in Gaza (14,280 children, even by sniper fire, 9,340 women), and at least 435 in the West Bank (115 children), with injuries numbering 74,188 in Gaza and 5,000 in the West Bank (725 children). Additionally, an estimated 7,000 individuals are reported missing and are presumed dead and buried under the rubble (4,900 women and children).
Moreover, 1.7 million (75 percent) of Palestinians in Gaza are displaced, and 2.2 million are facing crisis, emergency, or famine levels of food insecurity with at least 31 deaths (27 children) being reported thus far due to malnutrition.
READ: Warnings of ‘mass starvation’ in Gaza as Western powers freeze UN relief funds
Furthermore, with hundreds of American-made 2,000-pound bombs being dropped on this most populated region in the world, an estimated 50 percent to 62 percent of all buildings in Gaza had been damaged or destroyed by the end of January alone.
Israel’s history of disregarding international law continues: ‘no moral right’ to end slaughter
The observer state of Palestine welcomed the new resolution as a step in the right direction.
“This must be a turning point,” Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour told the UNSC.
“This must signal the end of this assault of atrocities against our people,” he said, declaring his entire nation was “being murdered.”
READ: UN’s top court rules genocide charge against Israel is ‘plausible’
According to Al Jazeera, Hamas welcomed the resolution, saying in a released statement that it “affirms readiness to engage in immediate prisoner swaps on both sides,” making reference to the approximately 9,000 Palestinian political prisoners (i.e. “hostages”) being held by Israel.
According to reports, Hamas abducted over 240 hostages in its criminal attack on October 7, with an objective to exchange them for Palestinians being held by Israel. Following earlier prisoner swaps, around 130 hostages remain in the custody of Hamas.
Up until this time, Israel has rejected Hamas’s offer to free all Israeli hostages in exchange for a permanent ceasefire and the release of Palestinian prisoners. However, Netanyahu has maintained his objective to “eradicate” Hamas, which both Israeli and U.S. intelligence sources believe is unrealistic.
With Israel’s long history of disregarding multitudes of UN resolutions ratified by overwhelming majorities of nations, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant responded to the recent UNSC act, asserting Israel had “no moral right to stop the war in Gaza until we return all the hostages to their homes.”
Upon the resolution’s passage, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres summarized its content in a tweet on X, asserting that it “must be implemented. Failure would be unforgivable.”
The Security Council just approved a long-awaited resolution on Gaza, demanding an immediate ceasefire, and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.
This resolution must be implemented. Failure would be unforgivable.
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) March 25, 2024
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