After a week and a half of intense negotiations, the United Nations Security Council has managed to approve a new resolution that "demands" the "large-scale" delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza and "urgently take" all necessary measures to this and to “create the conditions for a lasting cessation of hostilities.”
The measure has the favorable vote of 13 States and the abstention of the United States and Russia. Washington lifted its veto after the call for a suspension of hostilities was eliminated. Russia was pressing for a stronger statement.
Once the resolution is approved, it is its compliance – although obligatory – that seems complex.
Hours before the UN Security Council met for the fifth time to discuss the crisis in Gaza, Israeli forces expanded the ground offensive with a new incursion into the center of Gaza, fighting throughout the enclave, air strikes, shelling artillery.
From the United Nations itself, its Secretary General António Guterres denounces that Israel is conducting a military operation that "is creating massive obstacles to the distribution of humanitarian aid."
“Why hasn't aid [so far] been distributed well? Hamas gets part of it,” the spokesperson for Prime Minister Beniamin Netanyahu's office argued before the press with a serious gesture just five hours before the resolution was approved.
And the text of this does not include a condemnation of Hamas. Hamas is not even cited. But it does demand the “unconditional” release of hostages.
After 77 days of the war in Gaza, the death toll has already exceeded 20,000, including 8,000 children, according to Gaza authorities. And hunger affects more than half of the population of the strip, according to international agencies. The concern that the number will only increase is increasing. And a new truce is what, today, few expect.
On Thursday, after talks in Egypt, Hamas announced that it will no longer talk about the exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners as long as the Jewish State does not completely stop its military operation.
“Hamas uses the entire population [of Gaza] as a shield. And until Hamas does not release all the hostages there will be no peace,” the Israeli government reiterated yesterday.
On November 15, the UN managed to approve its first resolution on the war between Israel and Hamas, also after four failed attempts. He called for “urgent and prolonged humanitarian pauses and corridors across the strip” opposed by Israel. There were seven days of truce. Hostilities returned on December 1.
Violence on the border between Israel and Lebanon also continues to escalate. Yesterday the Israel Defense Forces announced the death of a soldier. Rocket alarms are daily.
