UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. Security Council scheduled a vote Monday afternoon on a U.S. resolution welcoming a ceasefire proposal announced by President Joe Biden that the United States said Israel has accepted. It calls on Hamas, which initially said it viewed the proposal “positively,” to accept the three-phase plan.
The draft resolution urges Israel and Hamas to “fully implement the terms without delay and without preconditions.”
If adopted, it would be the first Security Council resolution on a ceasefire plan aimed at ending the eight-month war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
U.S. Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood told reporters on Monday that the United States wanted to make sure all 15 members of the Security Council were on board to support what he described as “the best, most realistic opportunity to at least to temporarily end this war’.
The council’s scheduling of the vote on Monday afternoon indicated the resolution was likely to pass unanimously, but council diplomats, speaking anonymously shortly before the vote, said it was still uncertain what Russia and China would do.
The question remains whether Israel and Hamas will agree to the three-phase ceasefire.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Biden presented only parts of the proposal and stressed that any talk of a permanent ceasefire before Hamas’s military and administrative capabilities are dismantled is a non-starter.
Leaders of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad met in Qatar on Monday to discuss the proposed ceasefire, saying in a statement afterward that any agreement must lead to a permanent ceasefire, a full Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, an end to the Israeli siege of Gaza, reconstruction and “a serious exchange agreement” between hostages in Gaza and Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
The war was sparked by Hamas’s surprise Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel, which killed about 1,200 people, mostly Israeli civilians, and took about 250 others hostage. About 120 hostages remain, of which 43 are dead.
According to the Israeli Ministry of Health, more than 36,700 Palestinians have been killed and more than 83,000 others have been injured in the Israeli military offensive. It also destroyed about 80% of Gaza’s buildings, according to the UN
The Security Council adopted a resolution on March 25 demanding a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which ended on April 9, with the US abstaining. But the war did not end.
The current draft resolution underlines “the importance of the continued diplomatic efforts of Egypt, Qatar and the United States aimed at reaching a comprehensive ceasefire, consisting of three phases.” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is on his eighth trip to the Middle East since October 7 to achieve that goal.
Biden’s May 31 announcement of the new ceasefire proposal stated that it would begin with an initial six-month ceasefire with the release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from populated areas in Gaza and the return of Palestinian prisoners. citizens to all areas of the territory.
Phase one also requires the safe distribution of humanitarian aid “at scale throughout the Gaza Strip,” which Biden said would result in 600 trucks of aid entering Gaza daily.
In phase two, the draft resolution says that with the agreement of Israel and Hamas, “a permanent end to hostilities will take place, in exchange for the release of all other hostages remaining in Gaza, and a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.” . .
Phase three would kick off “a major multi-year reconstruction plan for Gaza and the return of the remains of all deceased hostages still in Gaza to their families.”
The final draft of the resolution would underline that the proposal says that if negotiations for the first phase last longer than six weeks, “the ceasefire will still continue as long as negotiations continue.” Qatar must work to ensure that negotiations continue until all agreements are reached and phase two can begin.”
The final draft rejects any attempt to change Gaza’s territory or demography, or reduce its size, but deletes wording specifically mentioning reduction by officially or unofficially establishing “so-called buffer zones.”
It would also reiterate the Security Council’s “unwavering commitment to realizing the vision of a negotiated two-state solution in which two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace within secure and recognized borders.”
And it would “emphasize the importance of uniting the Gaza Strip with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority.” This is something that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government has not agreed to.
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