1 of 3 | An emergency meeting of a special session of the U.N. General Assembly is set to vote Tuesday on a resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza. The minarets of a mosque are silhouetted against the sky at sunset in the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday, December 10, 2023. Photo by Ismael Mohamad/UPI | License Photo
The United Nations General Assembly was set to vote Tuesday on a resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, four days on from the Security Council throwing out a similar plan after the United States vetoed it.
The 20 Arab states and the Organization for Islamic Cooperation, which drafted the resolution, hope that winning the support of a two-thirds majority of the 193-country body will ramp up the pressure to try to reach a cease-fire agreement — even though the result is non-binding. Advertisement
U.N. General Assembly President Dennis Francis confirmed he had called the unscheduled meeting of the so-called 10th emergency special session at U.N. headquarters in New York at the request of Egypt, which chairs the Arab Group, and Mauritania, which chairs the Islamic Cooperation Organization.
Meanwhile, the United States said it was pushing Israel to do more to protect civilians from its military offensive in Gaza where the Palestinian Ministry of Health said 17,900 people have been killed and at least 48,000 injured.
In a phone call Monday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Israeli War Cabinet member Minister Benny Gantz that his country “must take all measures to avoid civilian harm” and further increased levels of humanitarian assistance, according to a State Department spokesman. Advertisement
They also discussed the safe return of all remaining hostages and preventing the conflict from expanding with Blinken stressing the “urgent need for affirmative steps to de-escalate tensions in the West Bank.”
The last meeting of the ESS in October passed a resolution calling for an immediate, durable sustained humanitarian truce” in the fighting between Israel and Hamas along with the unhindered provision of lifesaving aid to civilians that went nowhere.
The passage of the non-binding Jordanian-sponsored resolution by 120 votes to 14, with 45 abstentions, sparked a furious backlash from Jerusalem primarily because a Canadian-proposed amendment to include explicit condemnation of Hamas and the taking of hostages was rejected.
Israeli ambassador to the U.N., Gilad Erdan, called it a dark day which he said would go down in infamy for a body that had left not “even one ounce of legitimacy or relevance.”
Tasked with trying to settle the Israel-Palestine question, the 10th ESS has met 45 times since it was established in 1997.
No resolution on the conflict has been able to be agreed upon by the 15-member country Security Council despite six attempts since the Israel-Hamas war erupted Oct. 7, due to vetoes exercised by one or more of the five permanent members. Advertisement
