U.N. Security Council passes Gaza aid resolution as U.S. abstains

The U.N. Security Council on Friday adopted a resolution calling for a surge in aid to desperate civilians in the Gaza Strip, ending nearly a week of intense diplomatic wrangling intended to ensure that the United States would not block the measure.

The vote was 13-0 in favor of the resolution, with the United States and Russia abstaining. At the insistence of the United States, the final version of the measure did not demand an immediate truce, omitting earlier language that would have insisted on the “urgent suspension of hostilities.”

But it called for “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors,” of unspecified timing and location, “to enable full, rapid, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access.”

It remained unclear how the resolution would affect the fighting in Gaza, where about 20,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli airstrikes and ground operations.

The resolution was adopted after council diplomats repeatedly delayed the vote this week and reworked the measure in intense negotiations aimed at winning support from the White House and its allies in the Israeli government.

Security Council resolutions are legally binding on member states, but enforcing them also requires consensus and can be difficult.

“We know this is not a perfect text. We know only a cease-fire will stop the suffering,” said Lana Nusseibeh, the ambassador for the United Arab Emirates who has been leading the negotiations.

The United States had previously vetoed two resolutions calling for a cease-fire in the war between Israel and Hamas. That put Washington increasingly at odds with other major powers and with the Arab world.

Before the final vote, Russia proposed an amendment that would have partially reverted to an earlier version of the resolution, including a demand for a suspension of hostilities, but the United States vetoed that change.

Friday’s resolution, put forward by the UAE, the only Arab country on the 15-member council, called on the warring parties in Gaza to allow the use of “all available routes” into Gaza for aid deliveries, according to a draft that was circulated before the vote. It also demands the immediate release of all hostages abducted during the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7.

One major sticking point in talks had been the question of whether Israel would still inspect all aid shipments, a system U.N. officials said had made it nearly impossible to scale up the delivery of food, fuel, medicine and other aid.

The final resolution asks the U.N. secretary-general to appoint a coordinator responsible for “facilitating, coordinating, monitoring and verifying” that aid cargo entering Gaza is humanitarian in nature, who would be “consulting all relevant parties.”

The United States had rejected an earlier version of the resolution that put the U.N. in charge of inspecting aid shipments for weapons and other contraband, arguing that Israel should be involved in the process to make it workable.

Even though she did not vote in favor of the resolution, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said it “speaks to the severity of the crisis, and it calls on all of us to do more.” Thomas-Greenfield did not explain why the U.S. had abstained but said she was deeply disappointed that the resolution did not condemn Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel.

Russia’s ambassador to the U.N., Vasily Nebenzya, said United States’ efforts to change the text to its liking were “cynical and shameful” and “not transparent.” He said the resolution had been diluted to the point that it gives “Israeli forces the green light to commit war crimes.”

The only reason Russia did not veto the resolution, he said, was because it had the backing of Arab states.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said he hoped the resolution “makes people understand that a humanitarian cease-fire is indeed something that is needed if we want humanitarian aid to be effective.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.