The United Nations (UN) Security Council voted on Monday, March 25, fourteen to zero in favor of a resolution demanding a ceasefire in Gaza for the remainder of Ramadan. The holiday ends on April 9.
The three main demands of the resolution were a ceasefire, a return of hostages, and allowance of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
The United States’ decision to abstain rather than veto the vote drew ire from Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who then canceled a visit to the U.S. by an Israeli delegation to discuss Israel’s planned offensive in Rafah where over one million Palestinians are sheltering.
The ceasefire resolution calls for the immediate release of hostages taken captive by Hamas during the October 7 attack on Israel. The Hamas attack killed around 1,200 people and took hostage more than 250 others.
Israel’s response to being attacked has killed more than 32,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Because the resolution did not include language officially condemning Hamas for the October 7 attack, the U.S. abstained from the vote rather than voting in favor; however, U.S. Ambassador and Permanent Representative Linda Thomas-Greenfield said the U.S. “fully supports these critical objectives.” She suggested that a ceasefire could have been reached “months ago” had Hamas cooperated in releasing all of the hostages.
After its vote abstention, the U.S. Department of State released a statement expressing their agreement with the resolution’s goals despite disappointment at the lack of condemnation for Hamas.
“We reiterate the need to accelerate and sustain the provision of humanitarian assistance through all available routes – land, sea, and air. We continue to discuss with partners a pathway to the establishment of a Palestinian state with real security guarantees for Israel to establish long-term peace and security,” said U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in the statement.
“As reflected in my most recent travels to the region, we have been working very closely with our Arab partners to realize these important outcomes. We have also been working with Israel to ensure October 7 can never be repeated, its security needs are met, and it is further integrated into a more secure and prosperous region … We will continue our close collaboration with our regional partners to achieve these shared objectives.”
UN Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Israel Gilad Erdan objected to the lack of condemnation for the October 7 attack, especially given the UN condemnation of a recent attack in Russia.
“Civilians, no matter where they live, deserve to enjoy music in safety and security, and the Security Council should have the moral clarity to condemn such acts of terror equally, without discrimination,” said Erdan.
UN Secretary General António Guterres commented on the vote on the social medial platform X (formerly Twitter), “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.”
At the start of the conflict, Israel ordered Palestinians in Gaza to evacuate south for their safety. Hundreds of thousands of displaced people moved south. About 1.5 million sought refuge in the southern-most city of Rafah, which it is reported Israel plans to invade.
Of the hostages taken by Hamas, 105 were released in exchange for 240 jailed Palestinians, four were previously freed by Hamas, three were rescued by Israeli Defense Forces, and three were accidentally killed by Israeli troops.
“The situation must be different before and after this resolution,” said Republic of Korea’s Ambassador Joonkook Hwang. “This will only be possible when both Israel and Hamas respect and faithfully implement this resolution.”
A breakdown of the UN meeting is available at News.UN.Org.
Conditions continue to deteriorate in Gaza as people face extreme hunger.
While the UN has now passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire, it has been nearly two months since the World Court ordered that Israel must prevent genocide in Gaza. The suffering continues.
An analysis from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) partnership warned that the situation in Gaza is “catastrophic” with northern Gaza facing “imminent famine.”
Figures from the IPC Special Brief on famine conditions in Gaza. Courtesy of IPCInfo.org.
The IPC report classified northern governorates in Gaza as IPC Phase 5 (Famine) with 70 percent in IPC Phase 5 (Catastrophe), and Southern governorates as IPC Phase 4 (Emergency). According to figures in the special report, 677,000 people are in catastrophe currently, with a projected 1,107,000 people in catastrophe by July 15, 2024.
“This requires an extremely urgent political response, together with a full multi-sectoral and strategically balanced humanitarian response and full commercial access. It remains the case that the only way to prevent and stop famine is to stop the deterioration of health, nutrition, food security, and mortality through the restoration of health, nutrition, and WASH services, protection of civilians, and the provision of safe, nutritious, and sufficient food to all the population in need,” states the IPC report. “The cessation of hostilities in conjunction with the sustained restoration of humanitarian access to the entire Gaza Strip remain the essential requisites in achieving these goals.”
World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the IPC announcement shows how dire the situation is in Gaza.
“Before this crisis, there was enough food in Gaza to feed the population. (It should be noted that part of the reason there was enough food, was the millions in aid provided to the people there by Israel, through payments to Hamas.) Malnutrition was a rare occurrence. Now, people are dying, and many more are sick. Over a million people are expected to face catastrophic hunger unless significantly more food is allowed to enter Gaza,” said Ghebreyesus.
Previously in Gaza, less than one percent of children under five were “acutely malnourished.” As of February, the figure is between 12.4 and 16.5 percent in the north.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “WHO and partners have been carrying out high-risk missions to deliver medicines, fuel and food for health workers and their patients, but our requests to deliver supplies are often blocked or refused. Damaged roads and continuous fighting, including in and close to hospitals, mean deliveries are few and slow.”
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reports that as of March 17, more than 13,000 children have been killed in Gaza. This number was supplied by the Gaza Health Ministry.
UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said she had been in children’s wards where they are suffering from malnutrition so severe that they “don’t even have the energy to cry.”
A UN expert said earlier this month that Israel was destroying the food system in Gaza as a “starvation campaign.”
“Israel has mounted a starvation campaign against the Palestinian people in Gaza,” said UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Michael Fakhri in a speech to the Human Rights Council.
Fakhri is a Lebanese-Canadian law professor, who is an independent human rights expert mandated by the United Nations to report and advise on specific themes and crises. He alleged that Israel is intentionally targeting small-scale fishermen, saying that 80 percent of Gaza’s fishing sector has been destroyed since the hostilities began on October 7.
“Israel utterly rejects allegations that it is using starvation as a tool of war,” said Israeli Legal Adviser Yeela Cytrin, who walked out in protest.
Palestinian health officials reported that twelve people drowned while attempting to reach aid dropped by a plane on a Gaza beach this week. The Pentagon reported three of eighteen bundles of airdropped aid experienced parachute malfunctions and fell into the water, but could not confirm any deaths.
Last month Palestinian health officials reported that Israeli troops killed more than 100 people trying to receive aid from a convoy. Israel denies this accusation, saying those people were crushed to death by the crowd or aid trucks.
Israel has also banned the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the primary UN agency working in Gaza, over accusations that members were involved in the October 7 attack.
UNRWA denies these accusations and fired those who were allegedly involved; however, support for the organization has declined. As of January 27, UNRWA said nine countries had paused funding.
The UN resolution will hopefully pave the way for more humanitarian aid to make it’s way to the people of Gaza though a permanent solution remains elusive. Of course, the U.S. has argued the resolution is nonbinding, while the UN Ambassador for China says that it is.
According to a report by CNN, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz took to social media to say the resolution would not be followed. “The state of Israel will not cease fire,” wrote Katz. “We will destroy Hamas and continue to fight until the last of the hostages returns home.”
Featured image: “The Security Council adopts Resolution 2728 (2024) demanding an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan respected by all parties leading to a lasting sustainable ceasefire, and also demands the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, as well as ensuring humanitarian access to address their medical and other humanitarian needs. The resolution also emphasizes the urgent need to expand the flow of humanitarian assistance to and reinforce the protection of civilians in the entire Gaza Strip. The resolution was adopted with 14 votes in favor and 1 abstention (United States). A view of Council members signaling their abstention.” UN Photo by Evan Schneider.
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