In a closely watched vote, the United Nations Security Council rejected Russia’s draft resolution calling for a “humanitarian ceasefire” in Gaza, having failed to gather the nine votes and no veto required to be approved. Council members expressed serious misgivings over aspects of language in the draft but they also said that getting humanitarian aid into the besieged Palestinian enclave of Gaza, where water and fuel are dwindling fast, was essential.
The vote, held on Oct. 16, was pushed into the early evening after the 15 members met and the ambassador for the United Arab Emirates, Lana Nusseibeh, asked that they confer behind closed doors. They reconvened in the Council chamber about an hour later, and the vote occurred, resulting in five yes (China, Gabon, Mozambique, Russia and the UAE); four against (Britain, France, Japan and United States) and six abstentions (Albania, Brazil, Ecuador, Ghana, Malta and Switzerland).
Russia’s draft was competing with a Brazilian-led draft that also circulated over the last weekend. The Council was to vote on it Monday evening as well, but after the hourlong consultation by members, the vote was rescheduled for Oct. 17, at 6 P.M., as more negotiations over Brazil’s draft ensue to try to help it succeed. The UAE envoy asked for the closed Council session because she said that neither resolution had “consensus.”
[UPDATE, Oct. 18: The US blocked the Brazil-led draft resolution calling for a humanitarian pause in Gaza to get aid to the civilians caught in the Israel-Hamas war. The draft gathered 12 yes votes and 2 abstentions (Russia and Britain), but the US veto killed it. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the UN envoy, said the resolution failed to mention Israel’s right to self-defense, yet Ecuador told reporters after the session that the references in the text to international law implied that right. Additionally, Thomas-Greenfield noted that President Biden’s “diplomacy” in his current trip to Israel needed to “play out”]
Britain and the US said separately in their explanations of their no votes on Oct. 16 that the draft failed to mention Hamas, the militant group that eviscerated parts of Israel on Oct. 7, triggering the current deadly escalation in Gaza, the Palestinian enclave controlled by Hamas.
“By failing to condemn Hamas, Russia is giving cover to a terrorist group that brutalizes innocent civilians,” said Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US permanent representative to the UN. “It is outrageous, it is hypocritical, and it is indefensible.”
The British ambassador, Barbara Woodward, concurred, saying, “We cannot support a resolution which fails to condemn Hamas’ terror attacks.” Yet like many other Council members said in one form or another, she added, “We remain clear too that all possible measures on the ground must to be taken to ensure civilian casualties are minimised and to facilitate humanitarian aid.”
The Israeli ambassador, Gilad Erdan, also wanted the Russian resolution, which was supported by the Palestinian observer state to the UN, to explicitly name Hamas as a terrorist organization. (The US and Europe have designated it as such.) He spoke at the Council meeting and to reporters afterward, saying that his country’s retaliation on Gaza was meant to “save our hostages, to save our future and the people of Gaza from their savage tyrants.”
The Russian draft was submitted to Council members for consideration on Oct. 13, and its non-reference to Hamas was an apparent attempt to win the UAE’s favor. Instead, the draft said it “strongly condemns all violence and hostilities directed against civilians and all acts of terrorism.”
Russia, a permanent member of the Council, deliberately competed with Brazil’s version, as most members turned to the latter, in its role as rotating president of the Council this month, to take on the task. UN Secretary-General António Guterres also leaned on Brazil to lead the effort.
Russia’s credibility as a peacemaker couldn’t be lower as it bombards Ukraine, killing civilians weekly, in its 20-month war. The country also seemed to take the initiative on the Gaza crisis to poke at the US, given its staunch support of Israel and reluctance throughout the current Gaza catastrophe to mention the Palestinian civilians being crushed by Israel’s siege.
“While we speak, one child is being killed in Gaza every 15 minutes,” Vassily Nebenzia of Russia told reporters after the vote, citing UN data. Gazan officials said that on Monday alone, 72 people were killed in an Israeli hit on the enclave’s southern region, where millions of civilians are amassing at the prompting of Israeli warnings that it is sending ground forces into northern Gaza to obliterate Hamas.
On Friday, Oct. 13, Nebenzia also said to reporters outside the Security Council: “The responsibility for the looming war in the Middle East to a large extent lies on the United States. It is Washington that recklessly and selfishly blocked the work of the Middle East Quartet of international mediators in an effort to monopolize the peace process and limit it to imposing an economic peace with Israel on the Palestinians and other Arab countries without solving the Palestinian question.”
The Brazilian draft resolution names Hamas, saying that it “Unequivocally rejects and condemns the heinous terrorist attacks by Hamas that took place in Israel starting 7 October 2023 and the taking of civilian hostages.” Yet more negotiations to enable the draft to succeed in a possible vote on Tuesday evening may run into interference if that language stays.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden is planning to visit Israel on Oct. 18 and then Amman, Jordan, for talks with the Palestinian leader, Mahmud Abbas, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Jordanian King Abdullah II, the White House said. The US also said it was working on a humanitarian corridor with Israel to ease Gazans’ suffering. No details have been publicized, and it is unclear how this plan could affect the Brazilian draft resolution.
Other countries that voted against Russia’s draft said that the Russian delegation failed to carry out proper consultation before presenting its version to Council members, but Nebenzia, Russia’s envoy, blamed the “hypocrisy of the Western bloc” for the resolution’s collapse.
Ecuador, which abstained in the vote, said that most provisions in Russia’s draft were included in Brazil’s document. China, Russia’s biggest ally in the Council, said after its positive vote: “In response to the current severe situation, China calls for a ceasefire and an end to the war as soon as possible to prevent the war from expanding indefinitely and avoid further deterioration of the situation.”
The drafts’ mutual focus on the need for humanitarian aid in Gaza was bound to encounter deep political divisions that continue to disrupt the Council’s main role of ensuring international peace and security. The Russian draft, simpler than Brazil’s, also called for the release of Israeli hostages being held by Hamas since its rampage on Oct. 7. Russia’s version clearly called for the “unimpeded provision and distribution of humanitarian assistance, including of food, fuel and medical treatment, as well as creating conditions for the safe evacuation of civilians in need.”
Yet the draft didn’t address the Israeli ultimatum that civilians in northern Gaza must evacuate before the Israeli military attempts to demolish Hamas. The Brazilian draft, as of Monday, “Urges the immediate rescission of the order for civilians and UN staff to evacuate all areas in Gaza north of the Wadi Gaza and relocate in southern Gaza.” The original reference to Israel dropping the ultimatum was softened at the request of Britain and the US. Both resolutions condemned all violence against civilians.
Throughout the weekend negotiations by Brazil, its version underwent sensitive language changes to accommodate many powerful members’ concerns. The US and Britain also wanted the phrase “immediate ceasefire” to become “humanitarian ceasefire” and then “humanitarian pauses.”
Richard Gowan, the UN expert for the International Crisis Group, said that Brazil tried to find consensus by diluting the draft “to avoid alienating Israel.”
Complicating matters, Russia proposed two amendments to the Brazilian draft document on Monday, almost to ensure its demise. One “condemns and rejects the actions to impose the blockade of the Gaza Strip” but did not directly mention Israel. The second reintroduced the word “ceasefire,” which Brazil had removed from its zero version. The Council would have had to vote on the amendments last night along with the Brazilian version.
Gowan said that Russia was hoping that its strategy would push the US, a fellow permanent member, to use its veto against Russia’s draft. Instead, the no vote by the US saved it from exercising its veto, but its vote on Brazil’s draft is up in the air.
Through his spokesperson, Guterres said the Council needed to convey unity on behalf of civilians in Gaza. Since Israel’s full blockade was imposed, Gazans are facing deadly fates. The overall numbers are daunting: In Hamas’s Oct. 7 assault, 1,400 Israelis died, the worst toll in the decades of conflict between Israel and Palestine. Hamas is holding about 199 more Israelis hostage.
Israel’s bombing on Gaza has killed approximately 2,800 civilians and flattened more than 670 residential buildings. The Palestinian health ministry said no fewer than 10,000 people have been injured. Israel is continuing its airstrikes in Gaza despite global calls for civilian safety. Nearly one million people are left homeless. The Israel Defense Forces hit more than 200 military targets in Gaza on Oct. 16 alone, the forces reported.
The UN Relief and Works agency (Unrwa), which acts as a central community health and education hub for the very poor Palestinians in Gaza, says supplies are fast depleting as piles of aid remains stuck at the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt. The latter is ready to send the items in, but Israel keeps bombing the area.
Juliette Touma, the agency spokesperson, told reporters in a remote call on Monday from Jordan that that there was a high risk of disease outbreak in Gaza. Over two million residents in Gaza, including Unrwa’s 13,000 staff, have no access to safe drinking water now. The agency itself is down to rationing water to one liter a day in its offices in southern Gaza. Fourteen Unrwa staff have been killed in the fighting since Oct. 7. Unrwa relies solely on member state contributions to exist, of which the US is the largest donor. But the US has been silent on the Unrwa deaths.
“What we hear from our staff is that they are terrified, tired and wanting for all this to come to an end,” Touma told journalists. “The message we are getting is ‘get us out of this hell hole.'”
Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner general of Unrwa, said, “Gaza is being strangled and it seems that the world right now has lost its humanity.”
At Monday’s Council meeting, after the failed vote, Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian envoy to the UN, said: “To the children of our Palestinian people, I say: ‘It may seem to you that the world has abandoned you and your children, and that this unjust occupation has singled you out and turned off the light on your cause. But I assure you that all the free people of the world, in their millions, and peoples with living consciences, are with you, support you, and fill the streets of the world’s capitals in rejection of the crimes.'”
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Damilola Banjo is an award-winning staff reporter for PassBlue who has covered a wide range of topics, from Africa-centered stories to gender equality to UN peacekeeping and US-UN relations. She also oversees all video production for PassBlue. She was a Dag Hammarskjold fellow in 2023 and a Pulitzer Center postgraduate fellow in 2021. She was part of the BBC Africa team that produced the Emmy-nominated documentary, “Sex for Grades.” In addition, she worked for WFAE, an NPR affiliate in Charlotte, N.C. Banjo has a master’s of science degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and an undergraduate degree from the University of Ibadan in Nigeria.
