The U.N. General Assembly demanded on Wednesday an immediate and permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip as well as the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages still being held by Palestinian militants.
“The message that it is sending is that we are with you,” Palestinian envoy Riyad Mansour said after the vote. He added that it shows that Israel and its main backer, the United States, are more isolated in the international community over the war.
The ceasefire resolution, which had 85 co-sponsors, was adopted with 158 votes in favor and nine against, including the United States and Israel.
“The vote today is not a vote for compassion,” Israel’s ambassador, Danny Danon, said. “It is a vote for complicity.” He said the resolution failed to directly link the release of the remaining 100 hostages held by Hamas with the ceasefire, saying that amounted to “appeasement.”
The United States blocked a similar measure with its veto at the U.N. Security Council on November 20, saying that it could not support an unconditional ceasefire that did not come with the release of hostages. It voted against the ceasefire resolution in the General Assembly on Wednesday on similar grounds, as well as a second resolution supporting UNRWA, the embattled U.N aid agency that assists Palestinian refugees.
“Colleagues, the messages we send to the world through these resolutions matter. And both of these resolutions have significant problems,” U.S. Deputy U.N. Ambassador Robert Wood told the Assembly. “One rewards Hamas and downplays the need to release the hostages, and the other denigrates Israel without providing a path forward to increasing humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians.”
The General Assembly has previously called for a ceasefire, but its resolutions, though they carry the moral weight of the majority of the international community, are non-binding and have been ignored.
“We cannot remain silent in the face of this abhorrent situation. We must uphold our political, humanitarian and moral obligation — I repeat — our moral obligation,” said Indonesia’s ambassador, Arrmanatha Nasir, in introducing the ceasefire proposal.
The text also demands that Palestinian civilians across Gaza be given immediate access to aid necessary for their survival. The situation is especially dire in northern Gaza, where the U.N. says between 65,000 to 75,000 Palestinians have been largely cut off from aid deliveries for the past two months. International hunger monitors say famine is imminent there.
“This organization cannot stand idly by while thousands of innocent lives are cut short,” Mexico’s ambassador, Héctor Vasconcelos, said.
Support for UNRWA
In a separate vote, the 193-member assembly expressed support for UNRWA, the embattled U.N aid agency that assists Palestinian refugees in the occupied territories and the wider Middle East.
On October 28, Israel’s parliament adopted legislation to ban the agency in Israel, potentially crippling its ability to reach millions of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. The law will go into effect in January.
More than 90 countries co-sponsored the text, and 159 countries voted in favor of it, while nine voted against. The resolution says no other agency can replace it and called on Israel “to abide by its international obligations, respect the privileges and immunities of the Agency and uphold its responsibility to allow and facilitate full, rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian assistance in all its forms into and throughout the entire Gaza Strip.”
The resolution also emphasizes the need for Israel to pay UNRWA reparations for the dozens of schools, health centers and other facilities the agency runs that its military has bombed during the past 14 months.
“An agency we established is under threat,” said Slovenian Ambassador Samuel Žbogar, referring to the General Assembly’s creation of UNRWA in 1949. “It is an agency acting on our behalf, on behalf of the values and principles of this organization. We need to support it.”
Norway’s ambassador said her country will submit a draft resolution to the Assembly requesting the International Court of Justice to give an advisory opinion on Israel’s obligations to facilitate humanitarian assistance and other kinds of aid to the Palestinian population, delivered by the U.N., NGOs and states.
The two resolutions voted on Wednesday received the highest margin of support of any Gaza-related motions in the General Assembly since the war started 14 months ago.
The United Nations on Wednesday appealed for just over $4 billion to address the most urgent humanitarian needs in the Palestinian territories for the next year.
War grinds on
Israeli forces carried out airstrikes in northern and central Gaza on Wednesday that Palestinian health officials said killed at least 26 people.
At least 19 of the dead were killed in a strike that hit a house in Beit Lahiya, the officials said. Another airstrike hit a house in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, killing at least seven people.
The U.N. office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs said Wednesday that Israel issued another evacuation order for several parts of Deir al Balah governorate, in central Gaza. OCHA said it is the third time this year people there have been ordered to move.
Hamas set off the war with its October 7, 2023, terror attack on southern Israel during which its fighters killed about 1,200 people and took 250 hostages. Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza has killed more than 44,700 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza.
Hamas has been designated as a terror group by the United States, United Kingdom and several other Western countries.
U.N. correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this report. Some material in this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
