Tense and difficult negotiations continue at the United Nations Security Council in a bid to break the impasse paralyzing the world’s most powerful decision-making authority – as death and despair rain down on Gaza.
Al Jazeera has learned that Malta’s Ambassador to the UN, Vanessa Frazier, has circulated a new resolution among Council members for consideration and potential vote, in the hope of finally adopting a resolution on the war in Gaza, after several unsuccessful efforts over the past month. .
Malta is one of 10 elected members of the Council and has been the editor on children in armed conflict since 2022. This position gives Malta the opportunity to play a leading role in the efforts of the United Nations Security Council to protect children in conflict zones. Diplomatic sources told Al Jazeera that the new resolution was drafted with a focus on children in the hope that the 15 members of the United Nations Security Council could agree on the protection of children in the ongoing conflict. course.
On Friday, Adele Khodr, UNICEF regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, said: “Children’s rights to life and health are being violated. The UN agency went on to warn that the lives of a million children in the besieged enclave “hang by a thread” as child health services near collapse in the strip. Gaza.
There is new hope that the United Nations Security Council will finally respond to the war on Gaza, not only because there have been new attempts to find compromise language that pleases all its members, including the United States, but also because there has been a change in the position of the United States itself. President Joe Biden first called for a humanitarian pause in the Israeli war on November 2.
The United States says it actively engages with elected members – Albania, Brazil, Ecuador, Gabon, Ghana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates. This is important because its veto power has been one of the reasons why several of the Council’s previous resolutions have failed since violence erupted on October 7.
But as always, in the Council there is much wrangling over the exact wording of the resolution. Russia and China vetoed a US resolution calling for a “humanitarian pause”, a phrase suggesting it would be conditional and time-limited. Most other Council members want the resolution to include the word “ceasefire.” The choice of just one word in the resolution – pause or ceasefire – has led to an impasse within the top UN body, charged with maintaining international peace and security.
With the Maltese resolution, sources told Al Jazeera, a key issue that could come up for debate is the length of breaks in fighting. Humanitarian groups, and even U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, have said that the four-hour breaks agreed to by Israel are not currently enough to significantly alleviate humanitarian suffering. However, it is unclear whether the United States will agree to pauses of several days in a row.
However, one thing has changed since the previous resolutions. The UN General Assembly – which represents all UN member states – expressed a clear opinion, calling for a humanitarian truce, adopted on October 27 with 120 votes out of 193 members. Such a resolution is not binding but carries moral weight as a measure of the world’s mood.
Why has the UN failed to agree to a ceasefire in Gaza?
Previous draft UN Security Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire in Gaza failed. Two resolutions drafted by Russia failed to get enough votes, with the United States among the countries that voted against. Although a resolution proposed by Brazil received 12 votes out of 15 member states, the United States vetoed the draft. And Russia and China vetoed a resolution drafted by the United States.
Even though the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – China, the United States, France, Russia and the United Kingdom – have the power to veto any resolution they do not like , this remains reasonably rare. The United States and Russia are the two countries that have exercised their veto power the most in the past. In recent years, the United States has mainly used its veto to protect its ally Israel.
It’s not always the case. Before the 1970s, the United States often passed resolutions that Israel did not like.
In 1956, he voted with other members of the UN Security Council to criticize Israel for its military operation in Gaza the previous year. Egypt controlled Gaza at the time.
Will Israel respect the decision if a resolution is adopted?
Most recently, on December 23, 2016, during the final days of Barack Obama’s administration, the Security Council adopted Resolution 2334.
This resolution reaffirmed that Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine, including East Jerusalem, “have no legal validity, constituting a blatant violation of international law.” He adds that settlements pose a major obstacle to the vision of a two-state solution. There was considerable pressure from Israel and the United States for the Obama administration to veto it, but they ultimately abstained. The resolution passed with 14 votes.
Although the Council resolution, which also called for immediate measures to prevent violence against civilians, was “binding international law,” it was ignored by Israel.
What happens if a country defies a UN Security Council resolution?
If the resolution is not complied with, the next step is for the Council to take punitive action. This would be done in a follow-up resolution, which would address the violation and call for action.
The UN has taken action in the past by sanctioning offending countries. However, in recent years, Russia and China, permanent members of the UN Security Council, have shown reluctance, reluctant to adopt new sanctions by the Security Council.
Under the United Nations Charter, the Council can go even further and order the authorization of an international force. A notable example was the creation in 1991 of a US-led military alliance to prevent Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait.
The problem lies in any potential follow-up resolution. There are virtually no circumstances under which the Biden administration would support a punitive resolution that would take strong action against Israel.
Currently, the US administration is making backdoor efforts to try to get Israel to curtail its military operations and stop killing civilians. But they don’t work.
Israel currently does not appear at all concerned about accountability under international law. Israel and the United States are not signatories to the Rome Statute which created the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The Court made clear that it had jurisdiction over crimes committed in the Gaza conflict. Violations of UN Security Council resolutions and international humanitarian law, such as the targeting of hospitals and indiscriminate bombing of civilians, could form part of a compelling case.
But even if the ICC acted, there is no way Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would voluntarily surrender to detention in The Hague. Similarly, we did not see Russian President Vladimir Putin offer himself to the ICC judges when an arrest warrant for war crimes was issued against him by the ICC in March.
All this does not mean that circumstances will not change at some point. And if you break international law, there is no statute of limitations for war crimes. The ICC and a separate independent international commission of inquiry, established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2021, are gathering evidence on the current conflict. This will remain in the archives, for the whole world to see.
What has the UN done so far?
If we go back in history, the UN created peacekeeping forces to tackle issues involving Israel. This includes the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF), which deployed international peacekeeping troops to the Egypt-Israel border in 1956.
Two other missions are still active today. The United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) was established in 1974 after the agreed disengagement of Israeli and Syrian forces in the Golan Heights. In 1978, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was established to confirm the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon and restore international peace and security.
These forces are mandated to report any violations, monitor the situation and provide a calming presence.
There are limits, however, to what these forces can accomplish to establish peace. There is currently no calm on the front line between Lebanon and Israel, known as the Blue Line, with the most violent clashes in years between Hezbollah and Israeli forces. The situation in the Golan Heights has also been very tense for a long time, particularly during the war in Syria.
But all this only matters if the Security Council can first agree on a resolution. It’s about to be tested again.