By Dr Saranya.Antony A

On 6 December, the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, composed a letter invoking Article 99 of the United Nations Charter. This move aspired to forewarn the Security Council of a pressing matter of the Israel-Palestine situation, as the Secretary-General believes it could worsen and pose dangers to the existing international peace and security. He conveyed apprehensions about the miseries of human suffering, physical destruction, and collective traumas within Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Thereupon, the presidency of Ecuador summoned an emergency meeting on 8 December at the UN Security Council in New York. The immediate plan was to mediate and urgently install a humanitarian ceasefire to manage the alarming conditions in Gaza.

There’s a considerable crapshoot of elevating threats to global peace and security. The circumstances in Gaza no longer support the adequate delivery of humanitarian aid or human rights protection. Reports reveal that more than 17,000 Palestinians, including over 4,000 women and 7,000 children, have lost their lives during the dawn of Israel’s military operations. The UN report states that tens of thousands are injured, with countless still missing, probably trapped in the rubble. Around 85% of Gaza’s population has been displaced. More importantly, essential infrastructures, including hospitals, schools, and UN facilities, have mourned fierce damage or destruction.

What will the war return? The crisis for food, shelter, and clothes- the necessities and basic rights of a human being are unavailable to millions of people in Gaza. Many in Gaza live in starvation and famine, with half of northern Gaza’s population and over a third of displaced people facing severe food shortages.

In the wake of this severity of Gazans moving amid danger, lacking fundamental resources for survival, the UN attempted to move a humanitarian ceasefire. The Security Council is anticipated to vote later on a resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and the unconditional release of all hostages.

The US vetoed the resolution put forward by the United Arab Emirates and backed by over 90 Member States. There were 13 votes in favour, and the United Kingdom abstained. Explaining the UK’s abstention from the draft resolution, Ambassador Barbara Woodward said her country could not vote in favour of a resolution that fails to condemn the atrocities Hamas committed on innocent Israeli civilians on 7 October.

Deputy Permanent Representative of the USA, Robert A. Wood, said the US still could not understand why the resolution’s authors declined to include language condemning “Hamas’s horrific terrorist attack” on Israel on 7 October. It killed people from a range of nationalities, subjecting many to “obscene sexual violence.” He said an unconditional ceasefire would simply be “dangerous” and leave Hamas in place, able to attack again. It was “a recipe for disaster for Israel, for Palestinians, and for the entire region.”

Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of the Observer State of Palestine to the UN, emphasised that “When you refuse to call for a ceasefire, you are refusing to call for the only thing that can put an end to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. This is how Israel is conducting the war, through atrocities”.

The veto by the USA and the UK’s abstention in the UN resolution sends a strong message to the international community, showcasing their pro-Israel stance in global politics. Israel’s relationship with the USA and the UK traverses complex layers of historical, religious, political, and geopolitical interconnections. It is reflected in their foreign policy and their stand on multilateral platforms. The UK exemplifies the birth of the Israel state. At the same time, the US’s interests lie profoundly in Christian Zionism and Israel Zionism, influencing factors in the US to stand in favour of Israel.

The US is predisposed to safeguard national interests, defending layers of allegiance, which clearly reveals a prioritization of powerful state interests over humanitarian concerns in the UNO’s peace-building mission. This implies that the ongoing war has hovered to amplify rather than resolve, raising doubts about the adherence to peace by promoters of democracy worldwide. The situation indicates that the support countries accentuate Palestine’s question, seeking to actualize two-state settlements despite the irony of an illegal state formation of Israel.

(The author is Research Fellow, Political Theory and Constitutional Law, LBSNAA, Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India)

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