UN Security Council Passes Gaza Resolution

Facts

• The UN Security Council passed a UAE-sponsored resolution on Friday calling for 'safe, unhindered, and expanded humanitarian access and to create the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities,' as well as 'the protection of civilians, calls for urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip for a sufficient number of days.' The resolution also called for the release of hostages held in Gaza; the vote passed with two abstentions from the US and Russia.¹
• The vote was initially scheduled to be held on Monday but was delayed four times due to negotiations with the US regarding the resolution's wording and the mechanism for delivering and monitoring humanitarian aid. The US — which vetoed a resolution on Gaza earlier this month — argued that a UN-created monitoring mechanism for aid delivery would slow the process down, and Israel is currently undertaking monitoring. A US official said that Israel 'can live with' the resolution and an Israeli official said that Israel was 'grateful for the US efforts to address the most problematic elements in the proposed resolution.'²
• As negotiations between Hamas and Israel over another hostage release deal continue to stall, Hamas reportedly asked for the release of three prominent Palestinian figures in Israeli detention. The three figures are Marwan Barghouti, former secretary-general of the Fatah movement who is generally favored by Palestinians to lead the Palestinian Authority after sitting Pres. Mahmoud Abbas, Ahmad Sa'adat, secretary-general of the Marxist-Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Abdullah Barghouti — a Hamas member and former commander of the organization's military wing in the West Bank.³
• The Israeli military announced on Thursday that it is sending ground reinforcements, including combat engineers, to Khan Younis to target Hamas militants above ground and in tunnels. Israeli bombardment continued across the strip, including in Rafah; fighting in the north of the strip also continued, with Israeli forces saying this week that they were in the final stages of clearing out militants in the area.⁴
• Israeli forces on Friday expanded their operations in Gaza, calling for residents in al-Bureij in the center of the strip to flee south, signaling that they will advance into the area soon. Residents have not immediately heeded the warning en masse as of yet, though it's unclear how many still remain. Residents reported that Israeli tanks had fired on the eastern areas of al-Bureij.⁵
• Gaza's health ministry reports that the conflict has killed over 20K people in the Gaza Strip, including 8K children. [The official Israeli death toll stands at 1.2K people and there are still over 100 hostages being held in the Gaza Strip.]⁶

Sources: ¹FOX News, ²CNN, ³Ynetnews, ⁴Associated Press, ⁵Reuters and ⁶Al.

Narratives

• Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by CNN. Though, of course, Israel has a right to dismantle Hamas' military capabilities, it must wage this war in a humane way. The amount of civilians being killed will only galvanize Palestinians against peace and push them into the arms of Hamas. A more thorough and surgical campaign is now needed to eliminate Hamas's leadership in Gaza, as Israel is losing global support.
• Pro-Israel narrative, as provided by Jerusalem post. Though this has been a tragic war, Israel cannot allow Hamas to survive. Though it seems that the Biden admin. wants to pressure Israel into a ceasefire, Israel must push back against such short-sighted thinking. Israel is a sovereign country and has the right to defend itself from terrorism and pursue its own interests. Hamas's military capabilities must be eliminated so that the group can never launch a terrorist attack like Oct. 7 again.
• Pro-Palestine narrative, as provided by Middle east eye. Israel continues to demonstrate that its war is not against Hamas but against the Palestinian people as a whole. Nowhere in Gaza is safe, and Israel has effectively rendered the north of the strip unlivable. Israel is killing Palestinians at an unprecedented rate and clearly wants to make the Gaza Strip unlivable. Though the US, Israel's biggest ally, wants to minimize the war's intensity, it must instead exert more pressure to end the war completely.

Predictions