12- Dec-2023- News Agencies
UN General Assembly passes Gaza ceasefire resolution
UN General Assembly resolution calling for “immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities” passes with support of more than 150 countries.
US President Biden says Israel “starting to lose support by [the] indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza, adds Israel “cannot say no Palestinian state”.
Notable votes on UN ceasefire resolution
The vote saw some key Washington allies back the call for ending the war, with only eight countries siding with the US and Israel against the non-binding resolution.
UN Security Council members France – a close US partner – China and Russia backed the measure, as the UK abstained.
Ukraine, which has been receiving US military and financial support against the Russian invasion, also abstained. So did Germany, which staunchly supports Israel, while neighbouring Austria joined Israel in voting against the measure.
Poland, a NATO member and US ally that borders Ukraine, voted for the resolution along with the northern European countries of Finland and Sweden.
Some US partners in the vital Asia-Pacific region also backed the call for the ceasefire, including India, Japan and South Korea. Australia voted in favour as well.
Australia,Canada, New Zealand support efforts for ceasefire: Statement
The prime ministers of the three countries back urgent international efforts towards a sustainable ceasefire in Gaza, a joint statement says.
“We are alarmed at the diminishing safe space for civilians in Gaza. The price of defeating Hamas cannot be the continuous suffering of all Palestinian civilians,” they said in the statement.
A ceasefire cannot be one-sided and Hamas must release all hostages and stop using Palestinian civilians as human shields, they added.
Moreover, the US’s neighbours to the north and the south – Canada and Mexico – sided with the majority in support of a ceasefire.
Which 10 countries voted against the UNGA ceasefire resolution?
Unsurprisingly, Israel and the US were among the countries to vote against the motion.
Also among them were two tiny Pacific Islands – Micronesia and Nauru – with a combined population of fewer than 130,000 people.
Here is the list:
- Austria
- Czech Republic
- Guatemala
- Israel
- Liberia
- Micronesia
- Nauru
- Papua New Guinea
- Paraguay
- United States
UN General Assembly to vote on Gaza motion first, then hold speeches
Al Jazeera’s Kristen Saloomey, reporting from UN headquarters in New York, explains that the General Assembly “changed its normal way of doing business” for today’s session, set to begin at 3pm local time (20:00 GMT).
“Normally, countries would make speeches before they cast their votes; this can take a long time,” said Saloomey, but today the vote will happen first in “an attempt to move things forward quickly”.
The non-binding motion requires a two-thirds majority to pass. “The Palestinians and the other Arab countries that are pushing for this are really hoping to get a lot of countries on board to send a strong message,” she said.
“The hope is that if enough countries sign on and really push this and get behind it, that it will put pressure on Israel, and on the United States, that’s been backing Israel to allow more aid to get in and people to be helped.”
Gaza on verge of being ‘well beyond breakdown’: UN rights chief
UN human rights chief Volker Turk said that Gaza is experiencing dangerous humanitarian conditions.
“If you look at the humanitarian situation at the moment, it is so precarious… extremely precarious,” Turk said. “It’s on the verge of well beyond breakdown.”
The UN rights chief previously called for a ceasefire to end the crisis, stressing that the only way forward is “through an immediate end to the violence”.
World Health Organization head ‘extremely worried’ about latest hospital raid
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the WHO caled for the “protection of all persons inside the [Kamal Adwan] hospital”, in addition to repeating calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Aftermath of Israeli air attack in Rafah
UN General Assembly resolution on Gaza just a ‘recomendation’
Ahmed Bedier, president of United Voices for America, says the resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza will likely pass at the UN General Assembly later today, but noted that such resolutions are nonbinding.
On Friday, the US vetoed a resolution at the Security Council calling for an immediate ceasefire despite warnings from the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that the situation in Gaza had become “untenable”.
“How long are they [the US] willing to continue to go along [with Israel] as the death toll continues to rise, so many thousands of dead children,” Bedier said.
“It’s becoming really embarrassing for the United States,” he added.
Palestinians receive food rations at UNRWA site in Rafah
Human rights advocates to UNGA: Recognise Gaza war as ‘genocide in making’
The experts from across the Middle East and North Africa have written to the president of the UN General Assembly for action to recognise and declare “Israel’s atrocities during its military assault on Gaza as constituting a genocide in the making”.
“As members of the United Nations General Assembly, you have the duty to uphold the UN Charter and fulfill its mandate through the prevention of actions that aim to destroy the existence of a group of people in whole or in part,” the signatories from Jordan, Iraq, Bahrain and elsewhere wrote in their letter.
“The events transpiring in Gaza align with two of the criteria outlined in the [UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide], indicating a pressing need for the international community to address this crisis urgently.”
The signatories identified the criteria as “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group” and “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”.
They also cited mass killings, forced displacement, deliberate mass starvation, destruction of vital infrastructure and the large volume of children killed as “clear and unquestionable features of Israel’s genocidal action in Gaza
UN General Assembly ceasefire resolution: All you need to know
If approved, the measure would urge an immediate ceasefire in Gaza after the UN Security Council failed to adopt a similar measure last week because the US exercised its veto.
Egypt and Mauritania put forward the General Assembly draft, invoking a provision known as “Uniting for Peace” to compel the assembly to convene and arguing that the Security Council has failed to fulfill its global responsibilities.
While the resolution remains nonbinding, it is likely to show the increasing isolation of Israel and its top ally, the US, amid the mounting death toll, humanitarian crisis and destruction in Gaza.
The Palestinian ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, said earlier that there is “almost global consensus” on the call for a ceasefire.
In October, the assembly approved a resolution that urged an end to the fighting in a 120-14 vote with 45 abstentions