UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council is set to vote Monday on a resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
\nThe vote comes after Russia and China vetoed a US-sponsored resolution Friday that would have supported \u201can immediate and sustained ceasefire\u201d in the Israeli-Hamas conflict.
\nThe United States warned that the resolution to be voted on Monday morning could hurt negotiations to halt hostilities by the US, Egypt and Qatar, raising the possibility of another veto, this time by the Americans.
\nThe resolution, put forward by the 10 elected council members, is backed by Russia and China and the 22-nation Arab Group at the United Nations.
\nA statement issued Friday night by the Arab Group appealed to all 15 council members \u201cto act with unity and urgency\u201d and vote for the resolution \u201cto halt the bloodshed, preserve human lives and avert further human suffering and destruction.\u201d
\n\u201cIt is long past time for a ceasefire,\u201d the Arab Group said.
\nRamadan began March 10 and ends April 9, which means that if the resolution is approved the ceasefire demand would last for just two weeks, though the draft says the pause in fighting should lead \u201cto a permanent sustainable ceasefire.\u201d
\nThe vote was originally scheduled for Saturday morning, but its sponsors asked late Friday for a delay until Monday morning.
\nMany Security Council members are hoping the UN\u2019s most powerful body, which is charged with maintaining international peace and security, will demand an end to the war that began when Gaza\u2019s Hamas rulers launched a surprise attack into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking some 250 others hostage.
\nSince then, the Security Council has adopted two resolutions on the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza, but none has called for a ceasefire.
\nMore than 32,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed during the fighting, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. It does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count, but says women and children make up two-thirds of the dead.
\nGaza also faces a dire humanitarian emergency, with a report from an international authority on hunger warning March 18 that \u201cfamine is imminent\u201d in northern Gaza and that escalation of the war could push half of the territory\u2019s 2.3 million people to the brink of starvation.
\nThe brief resolution scheduled for a vote Monday \u201cdemands an immediate humanitarian ceasefire for the month of Ramadan.\u201d It also demands \u201cthe immediate and unconditional release of all hostages \u201d and emphasizes the urgent need to protect civilians and deliver humanitarian aid throughout the Gaza Strip.
\nUS Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the council Friday that the resolution\u2019s text \u201cfails to support sensitive diplomacy in the region. Worse, it could actually give Hamas an excuse to walk away from the deal on the table.\u201d
\n\u201cWe should not move forward with any resolution that jeopardizes the ongoing negotiations,\u201d she said, warning that if the diplomacy isn\u2019t supported, \u201cwe may once again find this council deadlocked.\u201d
\n\u201cI truly hope that that does not come about,\u201d Thomas-Greenfield said.
\nThe United States has vetoed three resolutions demanding a ceasefire in Gaza, the most recent an Arab-backed measure on Feb. 20. That resolution was supported by 13 council members with one abstention, reflecting the overwhelming support for a ceasefire.
\nRussia and China vetoed a US-sponsored resolution in late October calling for pauses in the fighting to deliver aid, the protection of civilians and a halt to arming Hamas. They said it did not reflect global calls for a ceasefire.
\nThey again vetoed the US resolution Friday, calling it ambiguous and saying it was not the direct demand to end the fighting that much of the world seeks.
\nThe vote became another showdown involving world powers that are locked in tense disputes elsewhere, with the United States taking criticism for not being tough enough against its ally Israel, even as tensions between the two countries rise.
\nA key issue was the unusual language in the US draft. It said the Security Council \u201cdetermines the imperative of an immediate and sustained ceasefire.\u201d The phrasing was not a straightforward \u201cdemand\u201d or \u201ccall\u201d to halt hostilities.
\nBefore the vote, Russia\u2019s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said Moscow supports an immediate ceasefire, but he criticized the diluted language, which he called philosophical wording that does not belong in a UN resolution.
\nHe accused US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield of \u201cdeliberately misleading the international community\u201d about calling for a ceasefire.
\n\u201cThis was some kind of an empty rhetorical exercise,\u201d Nebenzia said. \u201cThe American product is exceedingly politicized, the sole purpose of which is to help to play to the voters, to throw them a bone in the form of some kind of a mention of a ceasefire in Gaza \u2026 and to ensure the impunity of Israel, whose crimes in the draft are not even assessed.\u201d
\nChina\u2019s UN ambassador, Zhang Jun, said the US proposal set preconditions and fell far short of expectations of council members and the broader international community.
\n\u201cIf the US was serious about a ceasefire, it wouldn\u2019t have vetoed time and again multiple council resolutions,\u201d he said. \u201cIt wouldn\u2019t have taken such a detour and played a game of words while being ambiguous and evasive on critical issues.\u201d
\nFriday\u2019s vote in the 15-member council was 11 members in favor and three against, including Algeria, the Arab representative on the council. There was one abstention, from Guyana.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council is set to vote Monday on a resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The vote comes after Russia and China vetoed a US-sponsored resolution Friday that would have supported \u201can immediate and sustained ceasefire\u201d in the Israeli-Hamas conflict. The United …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":62517,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62515"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62521,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62515\/revisions\/62521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}