The United Nations General Assembly is preparing for a possible vote Tuesday on a draft resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.
A special meeting was called for Tuesday by Egypt and Mauritania “in their respective capacities as chair of the Arab Group and chair of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation,” a spokesperson for the assembly president said.
Another Arab-initiated resolution in October was adopted by the 193-member body. It called for “an immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities.” The resolution passed with 121 votes in favor, 14 against and 44 abstentions.
General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding.
A U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire failed to pass on Dec. 8 after a United States veto of the measure.
Jerusalem praised Washington for preventing the measure from passing.
“I greatly appreciate the correct stance that the U.S. has taken in the U.N. Security Council,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“The other countries need to understand that, on the one hand, it is impossible to support the elimination of Hamas while on the other hand calling for a halt to the war, which will prevent the elimination of Hamas,” he continued.
“Therefore, Israel will continue our just war to eliminate Hamas and achieve the other goals of the war that we have set,” said the premier.
U.S. Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood criticized the council after the vote as the draft resolution did not condemn Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre of 1,200 people in Israel or its kidnapping of some 240 hostages. It also did not acknowledge Israel’s right to self-defense.
Wood said the text was “divorced from reality” and would have “only plant[ed] the seeds for the next war.”
Thirteen of the 15 Security Council members voted in favor of the resolution while Britain abstained.
A draft text of the resolution that the General Assembly may vote on has language similar to that rejected by the Security Council on Dec. 8, according to Agence France-Press.
