The United Nations General Assembly called for a Gaza ceasefire in a 120-14 vote, but the resolution failed to condemn Hamas for the October 7 massacre and did not clearly call for the immediate release of the 229 captives in Gaza.
“The goal of this resolution's truce is that Israel should cease to defend itself against Hamas so Hamas can light us on fire,” Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan charged angrily after the vote.
In Jerusalem, Foreign Minister Eli Cohen posted on X, that he “rejected outright the UN’s despicable call for a ceasefire. Israel intends to act to eliminate Hamas just as the world acted against the Nazis and ISIS.”
Canada, with US support, attempted to change the resolution.
The UNGA rejected Canadian’s amendment that condemned Hamas for killing 1,400 people, including burning them alive and dismembering them.
That amendment received only 88 votes, out of the 193-member body. Fifty-five nations rejected it, and another 23 abstained.
Palestinian Authority envoy Riyad Mansour said UN’s ceasefire call showed that “enough is enough. This war has to stop. The carnage against our people has to stop.”
Now, he said, “We have to maximize our energies to stop this war.”
Hamas welcomed the UN's decision on the ceasefire, stating that they "call on the General Assembly and the relevant international bodies to take measures to implement the decision immediately, in a way that will allow the opening of crossings and bringing fuel and emergency aid into the Gaza Strip," Maariv quoted them as saying.
Erdan in his fiery speech after the vote said that “anyone who is truly interested in preventing violence shouldn’t vote for resolutions protecting terrorists.
“Whoever truly wants to prevent more violence... should be calling on Hamas to lay down their arms, turn themselves in and return all hostages. If this were to happen the war would end immediately,” Erdan said.
“This is a dark day for the UN and for mankind,” he stated.
The vote was taken on the second day of a debate on the ceasefire resolution, which had been submitted by Jordan and the Arab Group.
The resolution to halt the hostilities focused largely on the plight of the Palestinians.
Prior to the vote Canada’s Ambassador to the UN Bob Rae said that “there is no hierarchy of death. Yet the critical reason of how we got here,” the Hamas killings, “has already been forgotten by so many, as if it never happened.”
The UN issued its call as the Gaza war fighting on its 21st day intensified, with Israel expanding its ground operations at the edge of the Strip.
Concern has grown in the international community for the fate of the 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza due to IDF aerial strikes and explosions from failed Palestinian rocket launches. Hamas asserts that over 7,000 Palestinians have been killed in the last weeks. Israel has closed the Strip to most necessities, with only a small amount of humanitarian aid entering through the Egyptian crossing at Rafah.
Those who stood with Israel at the UN and rejected the resolution, were the United States, Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Fiji, Guatemala, Hungary Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay and Tonga.
The European Union, whose council on Thursday had condemned Hamas and called for a humanitarian pause, was split on the UNGA resolution.
Nine EU countries supported the ceasefire text: Belgium, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia, Sprain and Sweden.
Another 14 EU countries abstained from the Gaza ceasefire resolution, as did Australia and Canada.
Prior to the vote, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield called the absence of a Hamas condemnation and the failure to include the 229 captives “outrageous.”
“These are omissions of evil and they give cover to and they empower Hamas’ brutality. No member state should allow that to happen. We should not let it stand.”
“We must condemn Hamas’s acts of terror. Hamas’s goals are single-minded and sickening. They are determined to destroy Israel and kill Jews,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
“To [Hamas] Palestinian civilians are expendable,” she said.
Thomas-Greenfield clarified, however, that Israel must respect International law as it combats Hamas in Gaza. “There are no law-free zones in war,” she said.
“All actors must respect this, she added.