In addition to increasing assistance deliveries, the UN Security Council resolution asks for actions “to create the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities.” It comes after days of arguing over phrasing. DW has the most recent.
The United Nations Security Council on Friday approved a resolution that calls for humanitarian pauses between Israel and Hamas, increased aid to Gaza and the creation of conditions that will allow for a sustainable end to fighting, ending days of closed-door negotiations.
The resolution calls for “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip for a sufficient number of days to enable full, rapid, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access.”
The United States and Russia abstained from the vote, deciding against using their vetoes as permanent members of the body that would have shot down the resolution.
US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield praised the resolution but abstained from voting in favor of it after the text failed to include a condemnation of Hamas.
“We would love to see condemnation of Hamas,” a senior US diplomat told CNN. “We don’t understand why the council can’t just explain exactly how we got to where we are. But at the end of the day, that’s what diplomacy is all about.”
Throughout what the diplomat called “marathon negotiations,” the US was eager to not vote against the resolution after suffering global blowback for vetoing the last Security Council resolution that called for an immediate ceasefire.
Instead, in Friday’s resolution the language called for “urgent steps” to lay the groundwork “for a sustainable cessation of hostilities.”
