The United States and a growing number of Western countries are calling for Israel to shift tactics in the war against Hamas, imposing more frequent and longer-lasting pauses in the bombardment of the besieged Palestinian territory. Israel on Tuesday said it would be prepared to expand such pauses but would not let them become a vehicle for Hamas to attack Israel or try to gain an advantage in negotiations to end the conflict.
In a new turn of diplomatic pressure, the UN General Assembly on Tuesday voted 153 to 10 to approve a resolution introduced by Egypt and Mauritania that called for “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire” in Gaza. It was a significantly wider margin of support than the October 27 vote on a similar proposal in the Security Council, which the US vetoed.
That came on the same day as US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin vowed to continue arming Israel, which Washington has already supplied with billions in military aid. In a meeting with Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Galant, Austin stressed that the US is committed to a close military partnership with its longtime ally.
On Monday, the US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, introduced a US-backed amendment to the UN Security Council resolution that explicitly condemned Hamas. It failed to pass, however. The resolution, initially scheduled for a vote on Tuesday but postponed due to lingering negotiations over its text, calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and demands that all parties engage in a comprehensive and permanent truce per international law.
During the talks to draft a resolution, the United States and some European Union states were pushing for the inclusion of language expressing concern at the use of white phosphorus shells, which can burn human flesh. Those efforts were opposed by the Israelis, who want to keep ammunition for the F-16 fighter jets and other weapons in Gaza in case they need to fight more intense battles.
The latest round of UN diplomacy was complicated by the fact that Israeli forces were continuing to pound the area, killing two soldiers on Tuesday. The Israeli military defended the bombing, saying that it was using “sophisticated munitions,” which could cause less damage to civilians. But a US intelligence official was quoted as saying that nearly half of the shells dropped by Israeli aircraft were dumb bombs with limited accuracy.
In a sign that the diplomatic push for a ceasefire is getting traction, a senior Israeli official on Wednesday said that the Biden administration had made it clear to Israel that it will consider expanding a series of brief pauses in the fighting, provided they do not allow Hamas to use them as cover for combat operations or to fire rockets. The official added that the IDF would take immediate action if such pauses were used for those purposes. Earlier, Israel said it was still targeting tunnel shafts in the coastal city of Rafah and other sites to prevent Palestinians from attempting to dig escape tunnels under the border with Egypt.