New York [US], December 24: The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution on more aid for Gaza after several days of delays and weakened language that did not call for a ceasefire in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, prompting a backlash with some describing it as "woefully insufficient" and "nearly meaningless".
The resolution merely called for steps "to create the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities", and was adopted on Friday with 13 votes in favour, none against, and the United States and Russia abstaining.
It also demanded that all parties "facilitate and enable the immediate, safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance at scale" to Palestinian civilians. It came after several postponements and difficult closed-door negotiations aimed at reaching a compromise in the language that would not be rejected by Washington, which vetoed another UNSC resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire earlier this month.
Palestinian officials have said that more than 20,000 people, about 70 percent of them children and women, have been killed in Israel's land, air and sea offensive in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war on October 7.
While top UN officials and international aid agencies welcomed the call for more humanitarian assistance, they said the resolution does not go far enough with the majority of the enclave's population of 2.3 million displaced, the imminent threat of famine and the spread of diseases.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a post on X that he hopes the resolution can improve the delivery of aid, "but a humanitarian ceasefire is the only way to begin to meet the desperate needs of people in Gaza and end their ongoing nightmare".
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, welcomed the resolution but reiterated the need for an "immediate ceasefire".
Oxfam America's Scott Paul stressed to Al Jazeera that aid to Gaza "can't work while the bombs are falling and destroying houses, factories, farms, mills, [and] bakeries".
"There's no point in bringing in flour if you can't bake bread with it. So the focus is entirely wrong," Paul said.
International medical charity Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) said the measure fell "painfully short" of what is needed to address the dire humanitarian crisis.
Source: Qatar Tribune