UN adopts resolution on aid to Gaza, but does not call for ‘suspension of hostilities’
Mr Guterres said he hoped the resolution would help the UN and aid agencies deliver more food, water and medicine to people in Gaza, but said the only way to truly tackle the crisis was to end the fighting.
“A humanitarian ceasefire is the only way to meet the desperate needs of the people of Gaza and end their ongoing nightmare,” he told reporters after the vote.
Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan thanked President Biden and other US officials for “standing with Israel” during the negotiations and “maintaining defined red lines.”
“The resolution maintains the Israeli security authority to monitor and inspect aid entering Gaza,” Erdan said in a statement. He also criticized the Security Council for not condemning the October 7 attack, adding: “The UN’s focus solely on Gaza aid mechanisms is unnecessary and disconnected from reality – in any case Israel is allowing aid to come in any way. necessary scale.”
Riyad H. Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the UN, gave an emotional speech to the Council, choking back tears as he told the story of a Palestinian girl who lost her parents and two siblings in an Israeli airstrike on their house. She too was later killed in an attack on a hospital, he said.
“This resolution is a step in the right direction,” he said. “It must be implemented and accompanied by enormous pressure for an immediate ceasefire – I repeat, an immediate ceasefire.”
Currently, aid trucks entering Gaza for inspection must drive from Egypt to Kerem Shalom in Israel, then return to Egypt and cross the border into Gaza – a process that UN officials said was cumbersome and untenable.
The United Arab Emirates and Egypt, which control the Rafah crossing, wanted the UN to inspect aid shipments for weapons and other contraband, arguing this would streamline the process. But the United States argued that Israel must be involved in the inspection process for it to be workable.
Health officials in Gaza say about 20,000 people, many of them children and women, have been killed in Israel’s military offensive.