The United Nations Security Council will vote on a resolution drafted by Brazil that calls for humanitarian pauses in the fighting between Israel and Palestinian terrorists Hamas in order to give humanitarian aid access to the Gaza Strip on Wednesday.
The council is then scheduled to consider a Gaza hospital blast that killed hundreds of people on Tuesday, at the request of the UAE and Russia, officials said.
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian UN envoy, accused Israeli forces of the massacre at the hospital and demanded an immediate ceasefire. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad extremist group was blamed for the attack, according to Israel’s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan.
The charges have been refuted by Islamic Jihad.
The 15-member council was scheduled to vote on the Brazilian draft on Monday, but it was postponed 24 hours to enable additional time for negotiations. The US then asked for another postponement because President Joe Biden is visiting Israel on Wednesday.
It was uncertain whether the United States, which has usually shielded its friend Israel from Security Council action, would allow the resolution to succeed. The draft document also encourages Israel – without mentioning it – to reverse its order to relocate Gaza inhabitants to the south of the Palestinian territory.
Israel ordered 1.1 million Palestinians in Gaza to flee south last week as it prepared for a ground offensive in reprisal for the biggest Hamas attack on civilians in Israel’s 75-year history.
The Brazilian draft is largely a more thorough version of a Russian statement that was defeated in a vote on Monday, except that it expressly condemns Hamas terrorist attacks. Instead of a ceasefire, it advocates for humanitarian pauses in the fighting to let aid into Gaza.
Israel has imposed a tight embargo on Gaza and subjected it to the most intensive bombing in history. It has sworn to destroy Hamas after it killed 1,300 people and kidnapped captives in an attack on Israel on October 7. Approximately 3,000 Palestinians have died.
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