The United Nations Security Council has postponed a key vote on a bid to boost humanitarian aid for Gaza, which has been under a complete Israeli air, land and sea siege, depriving its 2.2 million population of basic resources. 

The United Nations Security Council has postponed a vote on a critical resolution aimed at boosting the flow of essential humanitarian aid into Gaza on Wednesday, Reuters reported, citing diplomats.

The UN body was initially scheduled to vote on the United Arab Emirates draft resolution on Monday before it was postponed until Tuesday and then Wednesday, according to the news agency.

The UAE’s envoy to the UN, Lana Nusseibeh, told reporters in New York that the vote will take place on Thursday instead.

“Everyone wants to see a resolution that has impact and is implementable on the ground, and there are some discussions going on, on how to make that possible,” Nusseibeh said.

The new resolution demanded that all parties involved in the war in Gaza “allow, facilitate and enable the immediate, safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance” to the besieged enclave.

It also called for the “urgent suspension of hostilities” to enable the entry of aid.

The Security Council is reportedly revising the wording to avoid calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, given the United States’ rejection of an end to the Israeli hostility on the ground. The US had used its veto power to block a ceasefire resolution on December 8.

Diplomats said that Washington was not satisfied with the resolution’s draft text over granting the UN the authority to “to exclusively monitor all humanitarian relief consignments to Gaza,” Reuters reported.

Diplomats also said that the Security Council awaited negotiations between the US and Egypt over a UN aid monitoring proposal on Wednesday. While Egypt shares the vital Rafah Crossing with Gaza, Israel has the upper hand over the entry of aid deliveries into the besieged enclave.

On December 15, Israeli authorities announced the temporary reopening of the Israel-controlled Karem Abu Salem crossing in response to US calls to increase the entry of aid into the besieged enclave.

Speaking to reporters in Washington on Wednesday, the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken said that discussions were underway with “a number of countries to try to resolve some of the outstanding issues in this Security Council resolution.”

“We want to make sure that the resolution in its – in what it calls for and requires actually advances that effort and doesn’t do anything that could actually hurt the delivery of humanitarian assistance, make it more complicated,” Blinken said.

Limited aid trucks

Gaza has been under a complete Israeli air, land and sea siege that has placed the Strip under a chokehold, depriving its 2.2 million population of basic resources. 

Israel has also limited the entry of aid into Gaza through the shared Rafah Crossing with Egypt, where foreign humanitarian aid has piled up.

Only 104 aid trucks entered through Rafah and 60 others entered through the Karem Abu Salem crossings on Tuesday, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The figures are significantly lower than the daily average of 500 truckloads, containing fuel, that entered Gaza before the war began on October 7.

On 19 December, the World Food Programme said that 90% of Gaza’s population goes an entire day without food and 10% of the food required has entered Gaza over the past 70 days.

On Monday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a report saying that Israel has been using starvation as a “weapon of war” in Gaza.

“For over two months, Israel has been depriving Gaza’s population of food and water, a policy spurred on or endorsed by high-ranking Israeli officials and reflecting an intent to starve civilians as a method of warfare,” Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at HRW, said in the report.

HRW also described Israel’s blockade of Gaza as “a war crime”, noting that Israel “is compounding its collective punishment of Palestinian civilians.”

Israel has continued its brutal genocidal war on Gaza for more than 10 weeks.

Euro-Med reported on Tuesday that Israel has killed 26,612 people in Gaza, including 10,305 children.