“We are at war. Not one operation, not a series of battles, at war,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his fellow Israelis on October 7, following a surprise attack by the Palestinian armed group Hamas that killed around 1,200 people. people in Israel.
Within hours, the United States, Israel’s closest ally, condemned the attacks as “unconscionable.” President Joe Biden asserted, “Israel has the right to defend itself,” echoing the sentiments of Israel’s allies around the world.
Over the next seven weeks, Israel dropped more than 40,000 tons of explosives on Gaza, killing more than 15,000 people, including at least 6,150 children, and razing entire neighborhoods.
After the failure of several resolutions at the United Nations and a series of diplomatic efforts, a four-day truce in Gaza, agreed to by Hamas and Israel, finally took effect on November 24 and was later extended for another three days .
While the war continues on the ground, a parallel battle is being fought through words on the world stage.
To understand how language shapes the current war, Tel Aviv Tribune examined all speeches and statements made by 118 UN member states during all sessions of the UN Security Council (UNSC) and the General Assembly ( UNGA) between October 7 and November 15.
In addition to UN statements, we analyzed hundreds of speeches and statements made by the leaders of Israel and Palestine, five permanent members of the UN Security Council – the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China and Russia, as well as eight regional players, namely Egypt. , Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey.
Pause or ceasefire: who said what?
Many countries have called for an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire, ending all hostilities, while Israel’s allies have only called for a pause in fighting.
Those who avoid the call for a “ceasefire” echo Israel’s sentiment that Hamas should be given no respite from the fighting and that the war should end only after complete destruction of the armed group. Many of these countries have called for peace or a political resolution, but have failed to use the term “ceasefire.”
According to the United Nations:
- A ceasefire is broadly defined as a “cessation of all acts of violence against the civilian population.”
Although there is no universal definition of what a ceasefire entails, it generally includes a formal agreement to end fighting and defines a political process aimed at de-escalating the conflict, such as withdrawal weapons or the repositioning of forces.
- A humanitarian breakon the other hand, is defined as a “temporary cessation of hostilities for purely humanitarian purposes”.
A break or truce is a temporary cessation of fighting for an agreed period of time.
Our analysis found that the majority of countries (55%) specifically called for a “ceasefire” in Gaza, while 23% of countries stressed the importance of a temporary cessation of hostilities. The remaining 22 percent did not explicitly approve of either option.
The majority of countries calling for a pause are European states as well as the United States and Canada.
The Biden administration has called for “humanitarian pauses” in the war while strongly rejecting demands for a ceasefire, at least until Israel achieves its stated goal of eliminating Hamas.
The majority of calls for a ceasefire come from the Global South, with the exception of a handful of European states, including France, Ireland, Russia and Spain.
France has called for the establishment of a humanitarian truce which could eventually lead to a ceasefire.
For Palestinians in Gaza like Tala Herzallah, a 21-year-old student at the Islamic University of Gaza, the role of the international community and organizations like the UN in helping end the war has been close to “zero.”
“All international laws are being violated and no one is saying anything. It’s all just ink on paper,” she told Tel Aviv Tribune.
People are being bombed in hospitals, in schools. But they only condemn. Our blood is cheap
Furthermore, like many Palestinians, Herzallah stressed that the conflict with Israel extends well beyond the tragic events of October 7.
“We (Gaza) have been under siege for over 16 years, with suffering, poverty and unemployment. Bombed from time to time.”