The UN General Assembly on Friday vastly approved a non-binding Arab-sponsored resolution calling for a “humanitarian truce” in the Gaza Strip.
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the UN, called the General Assembly “more courageous, more principled” than the divided UN Security Council, which failed in four attempts during the past two weeks to reach agreement on a resolution.
Gilad Erdan, Israel’s UN envoy, called it “a day that will go down in infamy,” but immediately added the following:
Israel will not stop the operation until Hamas terror capabilities are destroyed and our hostages are returned… And the only way to destroy Hamas is root them out of their tunnels and subterranean city of terror.
Ambassador Lana Nusseibeh of the United Arab Emirates, the Arab representative to the Security Council, expressed delight at the result:
120 votes in this kind of geopolitical environment is a very, very high signal of the support for international law, for proportionate use of force, and it is a rejection of the status quo that is currently happening on the ground.
Unlike Security Council resolutions, General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding, but as Nusseibeh told reporters, “they carry incredible weight and moral authority.”
The votes came after 113 speakers at the General Assembly’s emergency special session on Israeli actions in the occupied Palestinian territories. Jordan’s UN Ambassador Mahmoud Hmoud, speaking on behalf of the 22-nation UN Arab group, called for the resolution because of the urgency of the worsening situation on the ground.
