The United States put its vet on Friday, December 8, 2023, to a new resolution of the Security Council calling for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” in Gaza, despite the pressure of the Secretary General who denounced the “collective punishment” inflicted on the Palestinians.
The Emirati resolution project collected 13 votes in favor, one counter (United States) and an abstention (United Kingdom). It had been prepared after the unprecedented invocation of Antonio Guterres Wednesday of article 99 of the Charter of the United Nations allowing the Secretary General to attract the attention of the Council to a file which “could endanger the maintenance of international peace and security”.
The Americans, allies of Israel put their vet, explaining by the voice of the assistant American ambassador Robert Wood, not “supporting a resolution which calls for an unsustainable cease-fire and which will simply plant the seeds of the next war”.
The draft resolution, supported by nearly 100 countries, required “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire”, the release of hostages and humanitarian access. But, despite the council’s vote, Antonio Guterres “remains determined to push for a humanitarian ceasefire,” his spokesman Stéphane Dujarric told AFP.
Since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, it is the fifth draft resolution rejected by the Council widely divided for years on the Israeli-Palestinian file. Four projects had already been rejected in the weeks following October 7, for lack of sufficient voice, or due to Russian, Chinese or American vetos.
