From Reuters:
UNITED
NATIONS, March 25 (Reuters) - The United Nations Security Council
adopted a resolution on Monday demanding an immediate ceasefire between
Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas and the release of all hostages
after the United States abstained from the vote.
The
remaining 14 council members voted for the resolution, which was
proposed by the 10 elected members of the body. There was a round of
applause in the council chamber after the vote.
"The
Palestinian people has suffered greatly. This bloodbath has continued
for far too long. It is our obligation to put an end to this bloodbath
before it is too late," Algeria's U.N. Ambassador Amar Bendjama told the
council after the vote.
Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the failure of the U.S. to veto
the resolution was a "clear retreat" from its previous position and
would hurt Israel's war efforts and bid to release more than 130
hostages still held by Hamas.
"Our
vote does not, and I repeat that does not represent a shift in our
policy," White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters. "Nothing
has changed about our policy. Nothing."
Following
the U.N. vote, Netanyahu canceled a visit to Washington by a high-level
delegation that was due to discuss a planned Israeli military operation
in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where some 1.5 million people have
sought shelter.
Washington
had been averse to the word ceasefire earlier in the nearly
six-month-old war in the Gaza Strip and had used its veto power shield
ally Israel as it retaliated against Hamas for an Oct. 7 attack that
Israel says killed 1,200 people.
But as famine looms in Gaza and amid growing global pressure
for a truce in the war that Palestinian health authorities say has
killed some 32,000 people, the U.S. abstained on Monday to allow the
Security Council to demand an immediate ceasefire for the Muslim fasting
month of Ramadan, which ends in two weeks.
Hamas
welcomed the Security Council resolution, saying in a statement that it
'affirms readiness to engage in immediate prisoner swaps on both
sides'.
FAMINE IMMINENT
U.S.
Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield said the U.S. fully
supported "some of the critical objectives in this nonbinding
resolution," but added that Washington did not agree with everything in
the text, which also did not condemn Hamas.
"We
believe it was important for the council to speak out and make clear
that any ceasefire must come with the release of all hostages," she told
the council after the vote. "A ceasefire can begin immediately with the
release of the first hostage and so we must put pressure on Hamas to do
just that."
The
resolution demands the immediate and unconditional release of all
hostages. Israel says Hamas took 253 hostages during its Oct. 7 attack.
"It
was the Hamas massacre that started this war," Israel's U.N. Ambassador
Gilad Erdan said. "The resolution just voted upon makes it seem as if
the war started by itself ... Israel did not start this war, nor did
Israel want this war."
The
resolution also "emphasizes the urgent need to expand the flow of
humanitarian assistance to and reinforce the protection of civilians in
the entire Gaza Strip and reiterates its demand for the lifting of all
barriers to the provision of humanitarian assistance at scale."
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged Israel on Monday to lift all obstacles to aid into Gaza and allow convoys of the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA into the north of the coastal enclave.
Famine is imminent and likely to occur by May
in northern Gaza and could spread across the enclave by July, according
to a U.N.-backed report by a global authority on food security released
last week.
The
U.S. has vetoed three draft council resolutions on the war in Gaza. It
has also previously abstained twice, allowing the council to adopt
resolutions that aimed to boost aid to Gaza and called for extended
pauses in fighting.
Russia and China have also vetoed two U.S. drafted resolutions on the conflict - in October and on Friday.
"This
must be a turning point," an emotional Palestinian U.N. envoy Riyad
Mansour told the Security Council after the vote on Monday. "This must
lead to saving lives on the ground."
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Reporting by Michelle Nichols, Editing by Franklin Paul
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