Updated 07.13 | Published 07.11
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full screen The Security Council has its seat in the UN headquarters in New York. There are five permanent members and ten non-permanent members, who are elected on a two-year basis. Photo: Yuki Iwamura/AP/TT
Today, the 15 members of the UN Security Council are making another attempt to agree on a resolution on an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. It is unclear whether the United States supports the text.
The resolution was tabled by the council’s ten non-permanent members and has the support of permanent members Russia and China. It calls for a ceasefire during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which ends on April 9, as a step towards a “permanent and sustainable” end to the fighting.
On Friday, China and Russia defeated another draft resolution, which the United States put forward. It aimed for an immediate ceasefire and the release of the hostages taken by terror-branded Hamas in the October 7 attack on Israel.
Moscow believed that the draft resolution did not explicitly call for a ceasefire, but merely underlined the importance of such a ceasefire.
Sources within the United States’ UN delegation have announced that they may veto the new proposal. The US ambassador to the UN believes that the proposal “does not support the ongoing negotiations in Doha which link a ceasefire to the release of hostages”.
The US has on several occasions previously vetoed resolutions on ceasefires in the Security Council.