World waits on US as Security Council Gaza resolution stalled

The UN Security Council on Thursday will try once again to pass a resolution calling for a halt in fighting between Israel and Hamas after previous efforts to win Washington’s backing fell short.

Diplomatic wrangling at United Nations headquarters in Manhattan — which caused the vote to be postponed several times this week — has come against the backdrop of deteriorating conditions in Gaza and a mounting death toll.

The United Arab Emirates is sponsoring a draft resolution on the conflict which has already been watered down to secure compromise, according to a draft version seen by AFP.

It calls for “the urgent suspension of hostilities to allow safe and unhindered humanitarian access, and for urgent steps towards a sustainable cessation of hostilities.”

But Washington’s deputy ambassador to the UN Robert Wood indicated Thursday that the United States, a veto-wielding permanent Security Council member, was still not satisfied with the latest draft.

“We are still working it, still hoping to get to… be able to support it — we’re not there yet,” Wood told reporters.

– ‘Final decision’ –

Members of the 15-member council have been grappling for days to find common ground on the resolution, a vote on which was pushed back several times since Monday.

Israel, backed by its ally the United States, has opposed the term “ceasefire,” and Washington has used its veto twice to thwart resolutions opposed by Israel since the start of the war.

The latest delay was at the request of the United States, a diplomatic source said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday there would be no ceasefire in Gaza until the “elimination” of Hamas.

The draft text also calls for all sides to enable unhindered deliveries of aid by land, sea and air — as well as the creation of a monitoring mechanism overseen “exclusively” by the UN.

Diplomatic sources say negotiations are now centered on this mechanism, with Israel insisting it retain full control of supplied that enter the blockaded Palestinian territory.

The spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said it is “not for us to interfere with those discussions, which I understand are fairly intense.”

“The secretary-general’s own position is unchanged — he’s been calling for a humanitarian ceasefire,” said the spokesman, Stephane Dujarric.

Hamas infiltrated into Israel on October 7 and killed around 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

Israel responded with a relentless air and ground campaign. The Hamas government’s media office in the Gaza Strip said Wednesday at least 20,000 people have been killed, among them 8,000 children and 6,200 women.

Members of the Security Council “are engaging at the highest level of diplomacy to reach a text that will have impact on the ground. Diplomacy takes time,” the UAE’s ambassador to the UN Lana Zaki Nusseibeh said Wednesday.

“If this fails, then we will continue to keep trying… There is too much suffering on the ground for the council to continue to fail on this,” she added.