The UN Security Council is set to vote Monday on a resolution backed by the 22-nation Arab Group to demand an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza Strip during the holy month of Ramadan.
\nThe resolution, put forward by the 10 elected council members, is backed by Russia and China and the Arab Group at the United Nations.
\nA statement issued Friday night by the Arab Group appealed to all 15 council members \u201cto act with unity and urgency\u201d and vote for the resolution \u201cto halt the bloodshed, preserve human lives and avert further human suffering and destruction.\u201d
\n\u201cIt is long past time for a ceasefire,\u201d the Arab Group said.
\nMonday\u2019s vote comes after Russia and China vetoed a US-sponsored resolution Friday that would have supported \u201can immediate and sustained ceasefire\u201d in the Israeli-Hamas conflict.
\nThe United States warned that the resolution to be voted on Monday morning could hurt negotiations to halt hostilities by the US, Egypt and Qatar, raising the possibility of another veto, this time by the Americans.
\nRamadan began March 10 and ends April 9, which means that if the resolution is approved the ceasefire demand would last for just two weeks, though the draft says the pause in fighting should lead \u201cto a permanent sustainable ceasefire.\u201d
\nThe vote was originally scheduled for Saturday morning, but its sponsors asked late Friday for a delay until Monday morning.
\nGaza also faces a dire humanitarian emergency, with a report from an international authority on hunger warning March 18 that \u201cfamine is imminent\u201d in northern Gaza and that escalation of the war could push half of the territory\u2019s 2.3 million people to the brink of starvation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The UN Security Council is set to vote Monday on a resolution backed by the 22-nation Arab Group to demand an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza Strip during the holy month of Ramadan. The resolution, put forward by the 10 elected council members, is backed by Russia and China and the Arab Group at …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":16639,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16638"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16640,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16638\/revisions\/16640"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}