Xinhua News Agency, United Nations, December 21 (Reporter Wang Jiangang) Due to opposition from the United States, the United Nations Security Council once again postponed a vote on an important draft resolution on humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip on the 21st. This is the fourth time within a week that the draft has been postponed due to U.S. opposition.
Diplomatic sources told the media that the United States objected to the statement “Cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hamas” in the draft resolution and only agreed to include the statement “suspension of hostilities.” The United States also questioned whether the aid trucks entering the Gaza Strip were only transporting “humanitarian supplies.” In addition, the United States still opposes the draft’s proposal to establish a United Nations mechanism in the Gaza Strip to “specifically oversee the delivery of all humanitarian relief supplies through the Gaza Strip in a non-conflict direction.”
Earlier in the day, Robert Wood, the deputy permanent representative of the United States to the United Nations, told reporters that certain modifications to the draft text were necessary and that these modifications should be “substantial” in order to gain U.S. support.
According to a report released by the United Nations and 23 humanitarian agencies that day, 2.2 million people in the Palestinian Gaza Strip are currently experiencing “food crises or worse conditions”, with more than 576,000 of them reaching catastrophic levels of hunger. The World Food Program said in a report that 90% of Gazans often go without food for a whole day due to serious obstacles to the entry of aid into Gaza and the limited amount of food available in Gaza.
The media office of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) issued a statement on the evening of the 20th, stating that since the outbreak of a new round of conflict between Palestine and Israel on October 7, the death toll caused by Israel’s military operations in the Gaza Strip has reached 20,000, and another More than 52,000 people were injured and more than 6,700 people were missing. Israel said that this round of conflict resulted in the death of more than 1,300 Israelis, including more than 460 Israeli soldiers.
The United Nations website announced that as of 19:15 local time on the 21st in New York, representatives of the 15 member states of the Security Council were still conducting closed-door consultations on the text of the latest draft resolution.
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[Editor in charge: Shi Ge]
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2023-12-22 04:15:30
