1 / 3 Photo: Leo Correa/AP/TT
The extremist movement Hamas’s top political leader, Ismail Haniya, is on his way to Egypt for talks on a new ceasefire or pause in the fighting.
The UN Security Council hesitates when words are weighed on a golden scale, but on Wednesday it may be the third time it takes a position.
Haniya, who is usually in exile in Qatar, will lead a delegation of high-level officials, unnamed sources told the AFP news agency. On Wednesday, the delegation is said to meet, among other things, Egypt’s mediating chief of intelligence.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said on Tuesday that the country is willing to negotiate a new truce in exchange for the release of more of the people held hostage in the Gaza Strip.
“Important that everyone understands”
The UN Security Council is still debating how to bring about a break in the war – and with what words.
The council was supposed to vote on the matter Monday night, but it has since been postponed twice more. Now a vote is tentatively scheduled for Wednesday morning, American East Coast time.
The wording is being rewritten with the aim of preventing permanent council member the US from vetoing it, which it has done on three occasions since the war broke out in early October.
– It is important to us that the rest of the world understands what is at stake here, what Hamas did on October 7 and how Israel has the right to defend itself against those threats, said John Kirby, a spokesman for the US government’s National Security Council, when Tuesday’s vote had not yet been cancelled.
Small adjustments
In the draft that was on the table on Monday, the council called for an “immediate and lasting cessation of hostilities”. The word cease-fire is not included.
On Tuesday, it had been changed to a demand that the fighting be suspended “to provide safe and unhindered access to humanitarian aid” and to be able to “take immediate steps towards a sustainable cessation of hostilities”.
Neither Israel nor Hamas receive any explicit and targeted criticism in the drafts, but are mentioned only as “parties to the conflicts”. War crimes are strongly condemned, but in general.
The UN’s Middle East envoy, the Norwegian Tor Wennesland, spoke before the Security Council’s 15 members on Tuesday morning and then described how the aid efforts in war-torn Gaza are about to collapse completely.
A week versus tens?
Israel has proposed a one-week break in exchange for Hamas releasing at least around 30 hostages, reports the news site Axios.
The site reported earlier this week that the head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service, the head of the US CIA and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al Thani had met.
The UN General Assembly last week called for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire”. Of the 193 member states, 153 voted yes.
Resolutions of the UN Security Council are considered binding. This means that all member states must obey immediately. In practice, however, it often happens that countries can ignore it without consequences.