Download PDFAfter six months of savage and relentless attacks by Israel against Palestinian civilians resulting in more than 100,000 Palestinians murdered, maimed, or buried under the rubble – 75% of whom are children, the elderly and women – the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) finally passed a resolution (with one abstention – the US) calling for a limited two-week ceasefire leading to a “lasting truce”.
The vast majority of people around the world horrified by the killings and carnage demand a permanent ceasefire. It is a demand that was put to the UNSC several times before, and one which the United States repeatedly vetoed while supplying Israel with armaments and giving Israel diplomatic and political cover to continue its genocide – even after the International Court of Justice in a near unanimous order said there was a plausible case that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.
A stop to the bombings and preventing starvation and famine through the unhindered supply of food aid and sort after medication will be a welcome relief for Palestinians. However, the UNSC Resolution falls short of the demands of Palestinians and justice-loving people all over the world. The resolution has three elements:
1) It calls for a ceasefire until the end of Ramadan – which is two weeks from now, with the hope that it would ‘lead to a lasting sustainable ceasefire’.
2) It calls for the ‘immediate and unconditional release of all hostages. While it does not specify which ‘hostages’ are being referred to, it seems the reference is only to Israeli captives held in Gaza and not to the almost 10,000 Palestinians held hostage by Israel, many without charge and hundreds of children.
3) it demands the ‘lifting of all barriers to the provision of humanitarian assistance at scale’.
After six months, all the UNSC could agree on was a two-week ceasefire! This is not a just solution, and this is not a solution that will protect civilian lives – which is the responsibility of the UNSC. Israel has continued its bombing and the prevention of food aid after the Resolution was passed.
Still, the resistance has welcomed the UN Security Council’s call for an immediate ceasefire, stressing “the necessity of reaching a permanent ceasefire that leads to the withdrawal of all Zionist forces from the Gaza Strip, and the return of the displaced to the homes from which they left. We also affirm our readiness to engage in an immediate prisoner exchange process that leads to the release of prisoners on both sides”.
The UN must take measures to force Israel to implement this resolution. The only just way forward is a permanent ceasefire, accompanied by the removal of all Israeli troops from Gaza, a lifting of the siege that Israel has imposed on Gazan for 18 years, and an exchange of prisoners where the Israeli captives would be released in exchange for the thousands of Palestinian prisoners who are being held without trial and tortured in Israeli jails. Anything short of that would be rewarding Israel for its genocide and the destruction of Gaza.
The SA BDS Coalition calls for full sanctions against the genocidal state of Israel. It is clearly a racist pariah state like its unlamented late friend, apartheid South Africa.
This press statement was released by SA BDS Coalition on 25 March 2024.
