Palestinians check a building destroyed in an Israeli strike in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip on Dec. 10, 2024, as part of the ongoing conflict in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas. (Credit: Eyad Baba/AFP)
On Wednesday, the U.N. General Assembly will vote on a draft resolution calling for an immediate and unconditional cease-fire in Gaza, a symbolic call after the U.S. vetoed a similar text in the Security Council.
At the end of November, the United States once again used its veto power to protect its Israeli ally, which has been conducting a military offensive in the Palestinian territory for over a year in retaliation for Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The Americans, insisting on making the truce conditional on the release of the hostages, had this time prevented the Council from demanding an “immediate, unconditional and permanent” cease-fire in Gaza.
Now accustomed to taking over from the Council, which is largely paralyzed on burning issues such as Gaza and Ukraine, the General Assembly regularly lends its political support to the Palestinians.
This time, barring any surprises, it is set to adopt a non-binding resolution on Wednesday, very similar to the one blocked by the Council in November.
The text calls for “an immediate, unconditional and permanent cease-fire” and “the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.”
It also called for safe and “unhindered” access to large-scale humanitarian aid, including in the “besieged” north of Gaza, and denounced any attempt to “starve the Palestinians.”
The attack on Oct. 7 resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people on the Israeli side, the majority of them civilians, according to an AFP count based on official figures and including hostages who died or were killed in captivity in the Gaza Strip.
On that day, 251 people were kidnapped on Israeli soil. A total of 96 remain hostages in Gaza, 34 of whom have been declared dead by the army.
The retaliatory military campaign launched by Israel has claimed at least 44,786 lives in the Gaza Strip, the majority of them civilians, according to data from Gaza's Health Ministry, deemed reliable by the U.N.
'Bloody heart of Palestine'
“Today, Gaza is the bloody heart of Palestine and an open wound for humanity,” said Palestinian U.N. ambassador Riyad Mansour on the first day of the Assembly's debates last week.
“The images of our children in burnt-out tents, with empty stomachs and no hope or horizon, after suffering more than a year of suffering and loss, should haunt the world's conscience and drive action to end this nightmare,” he pleaded, also calling for an end to "impunity."
The draft resolution also emphasizes “the principle of accountability,” and asks the U.N. Secretary-General to submit “proposals” to support “respect” for this principle, through existing mechanisms or by creating new ones.
The first version of the text seen by AFP directly wanted to create an international mechanism to help investigate and prosecute those responsible for crimes committed in the Palestinian territories since 2014.
The General Assembly has already created such mechanisms, for example to help collect evidence of crimes committed in Syria from the start of the civil war in 2011.
A second draft resolution on the table on Wednesday addresses the fate of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), whose operations in the Palestinian territories are threatened by a recent Israeli law.
Calling UNRWA “irreplaceable,” the text calls on Israel to respect its mandate and allow it to continue its operations “without hindrance or restriction” in the Palestinian territories.
Israel has denounced the new texts in advance.
“If you really want peace, it starts with dismantling this structure of hatred and glorification of terrorism,” said Israeli ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon, referring to UNRWA, whose employees Israel accuses of involvement in the Oct. 7 attacks.
More generally, the country denounced new resolutions that “vilify Israel” and highlight the “bias and prejudice” of the United Nations.
