UN Security Council moving toward vote to demand aid access for Gaza

The United Nations Security Council could vote as early as Monday (18 December) on a proposal to demand that Israel and Hamas allow aid access to the Gaza Strip – via land, sea and air routes – and set up UN monitoring of the humanitarian assistance delivered.

Diplomats said the fate of the draft Security Council resolution hinges on final negotiations between Israel ally and council veto power, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates, which has drafted the text.

“We have engaged constructively and transparently throughout the entire process in an effort to unite around a product that will pass,” said a US official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “The UAE knows exactly what can pass and what cannot — it is up to them if they want to get this done.”

The US wants to tone down language on a cessation of hostilities, diplomats said. The draft text, seen by Reuters, currently “calls for an urgent and sustainable cessation of hostilities to allow safe and unhindered humanitarian access.”

UN officials and aid agencies warn of a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza – mass starvation and disease – with the majority of the coastal Palestinian enclave’s 2.3 million people driven from their homes during the two-month long conflict.

A council resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the US, France, China, Britain or Russia.

Earlier this month, Washington vetoed a resolution in the 15-member council that would have demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian militants in Gaza. The 193-member UN General Assembly then demanded a ceasefire last week with 153 states voting in favor.

The United States and Israel oppose a ceasefire because they believe it would only benefit Hamas. Washington instead supports pauses in fighting to protect civilians and allow the release of hostages taken by Hamas in a deadly 7 October attack on Israel.

After several failed attempts to act, the Security Council last month called for pauses in fighting to allow Gaza aid access. A seven-day pause – during which Hamas released some hostages, some Palestinians were freed from Israeli jails and there was an increase in aid to Gaza – ended on 1 December.

Limited humanitarian aid and fuel deliveries have crossed into Gaza via the Rafah crossing from Egypt, subjected to monitoring by Israel, but UN officials and aid workers say it comes nowhere near to satisfying the most basic needs of Gazans.

The draft resolution aims to set up UN monitoring in Gaza of aid delivered via land, sea or aid by countries who are not parties to the conflict. The UN would notify the Palestinian Authority and Israel of those aid deliveries.

On Sunday the Israel-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza opened for aid trucks for the first time since the outbreak of war, officials said, in a move to double the amount of food and medicine reaching Gaza.

Israel launches deadly attacks

Israeli forces launched deadly attacks up and down the Gaza Strip on Sunday, hitting a refugee camp in the north, a hospital in the south and killing a teenage girl who had lost her leg in an earlier strike, according to Palestinian officials, media and eyewitnesses.

Israeli strikes on the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza killed 90 Palestinians on Sunday, Gaza’s health ministry spokesman told Reuters. Another missile attack on a house belonging to the Shehab family killed 24 people, Hamas Aqsa radio said.

In Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, medics said 12 Palestinians had been killed and dozens wounded, while in Rafah in the south, an Israeli air strike on a house left at least four people dead.

In Khan Younis in southern Gaza, residents reported hearing Israeli planes and tanks bombing and shelling and the sound of rocket-propelled grenades, apparently fired by Hamas.

The Israeli military said it had killed seven militants in an air strike on Khan Younis and found rocket manufacturing parts and three tunnel shafts near a school used as a shelter.

Around 19,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza health officials, since 7 October when Hamas militants killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities, and captured 240 hostages in their surprise raid.

Israeli officials say that 121 soldiers have been killed since the ground campaign began on 27 October, when tanks and infantry began to push into Gaza’s cities and refugee camps.

Hopes for another ceasefire and hostage releases had been raised on Saturday when a source said Israel’s spy chief had spoken on Friday with the prime minister of Qatar, which has previously mediated hostage releases in return for a week-long ceasefire and the freeing of Palestinian prisoners.

Two security sources from Egypt – another mediator – said on Sunday Israel and Hamas were both open to a renewed ceasefire and hostage release, though disagreements remained on how it would be implemented.

(Edited by Georgi Gotev)