UN Security Council passes major Gaza aid resolution

After days of intense negotiations and threats to veto unsatisfactory measures, the United States abstained from voting on Friday as the United Nations Security Council passed a major resolution to address Israel's ongoing war against Hamas in the densely occupied Gaza Strip. 

Initially drafted by the United Arab Emirates, the resolution calls for "urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip for a sufficient number of days to enable full, rapid, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access." Earlier versions of the measure included language demanding an "urgent cessation" of violence, against the wishes of the United States and Israel, which have held out against a blanket cease-fire over the past 11 weeks of violence. The approved measure came only after the U.S. "countered with 'a more passive formulation,'” one American official explained to CNN, adding that "Israel is aware and can live with it." The U.S. had already used its permanent position on the Security Council to veto earlier cease-fire resolutions, putting it "increasingly at odds with other major powers and with the Arab world," according to The New York Times. 

"We know this is not a perfect text," UAE Ambassador Lana Nusseibeh told the paper. "We know only a cease-fire will stop the suffering." 

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Weakening the resolution's calls for a stop to the violence "frustrated several council members" who saw the change as "approval for Israel to further act against Hamas for a deadly Oct. 7 attack," Reuters reported. According to the Hamas-run Gazan Health Ministry, more than 20,000 Palestinians — largely women and children — have been killed by Israel since the war began, with upwards of 50,000 more injured.

According to Reuters, the Security Council also urged Israel and Hamas to "adhere to international humanitarian law" while denouncing "all violence and hostilities against civilians, and all acts of terrorism."