UN Security Council set to vote on resolution calling for pause in fighting to deliver more aid into Gaza
By Farnaz Fassihi
UNITED NATIONS -The UN Security Council was set to vote Thursday (21) on a resolution calling for pauses in fighting in the Gaza Strip to allow for scaled-up, safe delivery of aid from air, land and sea.
Some diplomats on the council said Thursday that it appeared likely that the United States would veto the resolution, effectively blocking council action on increasing humanitarian aid delivery to a population that has gone weeks without access to basics including food, water and medical care. The council delayed the vote three times this week at the request of the United States and held several closed consultations to try to reach a compromise.
A key sticking point for the United States is the establishment of a UN monitoring system that would take control of inspecting aid going into Gaza, according to the diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation. The United States has said Israel must be involved in inspections, while the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, which controls the Rafah border crossing with Gaza, want the United Nations to streamline the delivery of more aid.
The United States, under pressure from Israel to block the resolution, disputes that UN inspections will speed up aid. Nate Evans, the spokesperson for the US mission to the UN, said the United States had “serious concerns” that the resolution as worded “would slow delivery of humanitarian aid with an unworkable monitoring mechanism.”
The UN handles, monitors and delivers humanitarian aid to many conflict zones around the world. For example, the Security Council, with the backing of the United States, passed a resolution to allow the United Nations to cross the border into northern Syria and inspect and deliver aid.
“The UN has done this kind of work before. It is now up to us to ensure that it has robust backing to respond to this catastrophe in Gaza,” said Lana Nusseibeh, the UAE ambassador to the UN who is leading the negotiations on the resolution. “As we have done from the beginning of these negotiations, we will leave no stone unturned in pursuit of a successful adoption.”
Israel launched the war to crush Hamas and other militant groups after Hamas led an attack on Israel on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 people and took around 240 hostages. Humanitarian aid has trickled through the Rafah border crossing after a complicated monitoring system in which truck convoys have to first travel to Israel for inspection, then return to Egypt and go to Rafah to cross into Gaza.
Health authorities in Gaza say that around 20,000 people have been killed in the enclave since the beginning of the war, the majority women and children, and the United Nations has warned of a humanitarian catastrophe as most of the enclave’s population has been forced to flee their homes.
-New York Times
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