The United Nations Security Council adopted a support resolution with fourteen votes in favor, none against, and Russia abstained. to the three-phase peace proposal for Gaza that President Joe Biden outlined ten days ago. “It's an opportunity to take a different route. Hamas – the Palestinian fundamentalist guerrilla, also known as the Islamic Resistance Movement – must accept it,” US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas Greenfield said after the vote. “The United States will ensure that Israel meets its international obligations, assuming Hamas accepts this agreement.”
“Palestinian lives matter,” Algeria's representative Amar Bendjama said as he commemorated the more than 37,000 Palestinians who died in the eight months of the war after the vote. “We voted in favor of this proposal because it represents a step forward for an immediate and permanent ceasefire.” Israeli diplomat Reud Shapir ben Naftali said that “it is Hamas that is prolonging this war. Hamas and only Hamas.” Israel, he asserted, will not engage in “endless or pointless negotiations that can be exploited by Hamas to buy time.”
It is the fourth time the Security Council has adopted a resolution on Gaza since the war began last October, although the previous three have remained empty due to Israel's refusal to halt its offensive in the Gaza Strip, which has already killed more than 37,000 people. left. dead, more than twice as many injured and most of the infrastructure and buildings destroyed. In March, the organization had demanded an immediate ceasefire and the unconditional release of hostages held by Hamas since the October 7 attacks.
In a statement from Hamas, the movement welcomed and assured the new resolution who is willing to work with mediators to implement the principles of the ceasefire plan.
The resolution expresses support for the three-phase ceasefire proposal, which “Israel has accepted, calls on Hamas to also accept it, and urges both sides to agree to its terms without further delay and without to implement any conditions.”
“We cannot afford to wait any longer. With each passing day, the needless suffering continues,” Thomas Greenfield said before the vote. “Palestinian citizens live in hell,” he had stated moments earlier.
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The United States has launched its entire diplomatic apparatus to try to make progress that will end once and for all a war in Gaza that is becoming a heavy electoral burden for the White House, five months before the elections in the war that the Democratic president risks. another four years in office.
Most polls show Biden trailing his rival, Republican Donald Trump, while the progressive wing of the Democratic Party blames its leader for his support for Israel despite the violent methods of that country's armed forces on the margins. This weekend, hundreds of people demonstrated in front of the presidential residence to demand a ceasefire and an end to military aid to Israel. Vice President Kamala Harris was harassed by a pro-Palestinian activist during a visit to Michigan, the state with the highest percentage of Arab-American voters nationwide and which could be crucial at the November polls: polls suggest in good due to the dissatisfaction with Biden's policies in the Middle East, Trump would gain the upper hand in that area, four years after the current president won the 2020 elections.
Presenting the proposed resolution to the UN Security Council, the Foreign Minister said: Antony Blinken held talks in Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahuto convince him to say yes to the three-phase peace proposal that President Joe Biden laid out at the White House ten days ago.
During the meeting last Monday between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the head of US diplomacy reiterated to his interlocutor the need for Israel to approve the three-phase ceasefire proposal. Blinken “reiterated that the United States and other world leaders maintain their support for the plan,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.
Blinken arrived in Jerusalem from Cairo, where he had met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al Sisi to pressure him to convince Hamas to approve the proposal that Washington sees as its best asset to end the war. to end. The foreign minister plans to continue his tour, his eighth in the Middle East since the conflict broke out, in Jordan and Qatar, the other main mediator in negotiations for a cessation of hostilities in the Gaza Strip.
A distant peace
But the prospects for the peace proposal now appear more remote than ever since President Joe Biden appeared at the White House to detail each of its three phases: A temporary ceasefire would be imposed in the first six weeks, during which the arrival of humanitarian aid organizations would take place. Aid to the Gaza Strip would multiply and an exchange of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners for the Israeli hostages captured by Hamas in the October attacks would be completed. The second phase would see a permanent ceasefire implemented and hostage exchanges completed. The third phase would be reconstruction.
The peace plan, drafted by Israel but intellectually authored by the United States, already had an uncertain future. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted time and time again that his government will not accept it until Hamas is completely destroyed. And this weekend's events have complicated their prospects and opened a new rift between the parties: the rescue of the four Israeli hostages released in Gaza this weekend has reinforced the prime minister's tough stance. The resignation of opposition leader Benny Gantz As a minister without portfolio, he also tilts the War Cabinet even more to the right and becomes even more reluctant to make any concessions. And the deaths of more than 270 Palestinians during the rescue operation are also hardening the positions of the Islamic Resistance Movement, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
Given the distance between the parties, the Biden administration is considering a plan B if the proposal fails: at least reaching an agreement with Hamas on the release of the five hostages of dual American and Israeli nationality, the network said. NBC television.
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