11th December, 2023
By Oluwatofunmi Adedokun
The United Nations General Assembly will meet on Tuesday to discuss the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, administrators and diplomats said on Sunday after the United States rejected a Security Council resolution for a ceasefire.
According to a spokesperson for the Assembly President said a special meeting of the General Assembly has been called for Tuesday afternoon by the representatives for Egypt and Mauritania “in their respective capacities as Chair of the organization and Chair of the Arab Group for Islamic Cooperation”
Conforming to diplomatic sources, the General Assembly, whose resolutions are nullified, might vote on a text for a truce resolution at the meeting.
An outline of the text seen by AFP closely follows the language of Friday’s rejected Security Council resolution, “expressing grave concern over the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.”
It demands “an immediate humanitarian truce” along with “immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.”
The United States blocked the truce resolution on Friday after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called an emergency meeting of the Security Council, positioning the rarely-used Article 99 of the UN Charter to bring to the council’s attention.
“Any matter which, in his opinion, may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.”
Guterres said the accumulation of “authority and credibility” has been “severely eroded” by its delayed response to the war.”
At the end of October, in another of its resolutions, the General Assembly called for an “instant, durable and sustained humanitarian truce leading to ending of hostilities” between Israel and Hamas.
Two weeks later the Security Council broke its silence on the war for the first time by calling for “extended pauses and humanitarian corridors” — using less clear language than a ceasefire or a truce.