Changes to UN Gaza resolution 'go too far' for some Security Council members [View all]

[Donkees]

Gabriel Elizondo
Reporting from UN headquarters in New York

These negotiations all happened behind closed doors, none of us were inside the room. But we have gotten an idea of some of the changes that were made to the draft resolution.

Three of them are quite significant and that’s, perhaps, why they were not able to come up with an agreement.

The changes are: Suspension of hostilities. According to the new wording, they are calling now for “creating the conditions” for the cessation of hostilities. So that’s a little watered down.

Also, the original draft called for a UN monitoring mechanism… monitoring all the aid coming into Gaza. That has been taken out. Now they are just calling for a senior coordinator to be appointed by the UN Secretary-General to oversee the aid coming in.

There was another part of the original draft resolution that condemned the indiscriminate attacks against civilians. That has been completely struck from a new draft we believe is being discussed now.

Diplomatic sources are telling us the Russian and Palestinian ambassadors are not happy with these changes at all, and now we are back to the drawing board essentially. They decided after, well over an hour, late this evening to basically call it a night and try to come back tomorrow to see if they can reach some sort of conclusion.

The US ambassador at the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, made some brief comments to reporters as she left the Security Council chambers and she basically said that this is not watered down and that they [the US] supports these new changes, without going into the details.

But, clearly, there are other members that are saying these changes go too far for what they are willing to vote for.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/12/22/israel-hamas-war-live-un-security-council-to-vote-on-gaza-resolution