UN Emergency Meeting on Gaza Conflict: US Veto Stalls Humanitarian Resolution

UN Secretary-General António Guterres had called an emergency meeting of the Security Council in an attempt to push for such a resolution about two months after the start of hostilities in the Gaza Strip. According to the Ministry of Health of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, 17,487 people, mostly women and children, have been killed in this war.

“The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is deeply disappointed,” a UAE spokesman said in response to the US veto. “Unfortunately (..) this [Drošības] the council is unable to demand a humanitarian truce.”

Washington defended its veto and criticized the resolution’s supporters for trying to rush its passage without changing the call for an unconditional ceasefire.

“This resolution still contains a call for an unconditional cease-fire (..) so that Hamas would be able to repeat what it did on October 7,” said Robert Wood, the deputy representative of the US to the UN. He described the resolution as “divorced from reality.”

As a permanent member of the Security Council, the US can veto any resolution. Great Britain, which abstained in this vote, also has such rights.

Guterres said before the vote that “the brutality of Hamas cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”

Guterres used Article 99 of the UN Charter, which gives the UN Secretary-General the right to report to the Security Council on all issues that, in his opinion, may threaten international peace and security.

He sought a “humane ceasefire” to prevent “a catastrophe with potentially irreversible consequences for the Palestinians” and the entire Middle East.

2023-12-08 22:23:00
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