U.N. General Assembly Votes for Israel-Hamas Cease-Fire, Countering U.S. Veto
The U.N. General Assembly demanded an immediate cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war in an overwhelming vote on Tuesday that highlighted much of the world’s desire to bring the bloody conflict to an end.
About three-quarters of the body’s members voted in favor of the nonbinding resolution, underscoring the isolation of Israel and the United States, which last week blocked a cease-fire resolution in the Security Council.
Resounding applause and cheers erupted after the vote was announced: 153 in favor, 10 against and 23 abstentions. The resolution required two-thirds majority for passage.
“How many more thousands of lives must be lost before we do something?” Dennis Francis, a diplomat from Trinidad and Tobago currently serving as president of the General Assembly, said in an address to the chamber before the vote. “No more time is left. The carnage must stop.”
The resolution was put forth by the U.N.’s Arab Group and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which represents Arab and Muslim countries.
More than 15,000 people, many of them women and children, have been killed in Gaza, according to local health officials, since Israel declared war on Hamas after the militant group launched a terrorist attack on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,200 people and taking 240 others hostage.
General Assembly resolutions are never legally binding, but they carry political weight and are a symbolic reflection of the wider perspective among the U.N.’s 193 members.
The countries that joined the U.S. and Israel in rejecting the cease-fire resolution on Tuesday were Austria, the Czech Republic, Guatemala, Liberia, Micronesia, Paraguay and Papua New Guinea and Nauru. Among the countries that abstained were Britain, Hungary, South Sudan and Germany.
Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., Gilad Erdan, sharply criticized the United Nations and said that passing the resolution made the institution more irrelevant. He said that calls for a cease-fire aimed to “tie Israel’s hand and to continue Hamas’s reign of terror.”
The Assembly convened the emergency session after the U.S. vetoed a binding Security Council resolution for a cease-fire on Friday, saying that halting the fighting would allow Hamas to regroup and plan more terrorist attacks similar to the devastating assault on Israel it led from Gaza on Oct. 7.
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