Reuters saw a draft of a different U.N. Security Council resolution that the U.S. has put forward. It calls for a temporary end to the war between Israel and Hamas and opposes a big ground attack by its partner Israel in Rafah.
The U.S. said on Tuesday it would veto an Algerian-drafted resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. This is because the U.S. is worried that it could hurt talks between the U.S., Egypt, Israel, and Qatar that are trying to end the war and free Hamas hostages.
Washington has been against using the word “ceasefire” in any U.N. action on the war between Israel and Hamas until now. However, the U.S. text uses the exact words President Joe Biden said he used last week in talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
It would have the Security Council “underscore its support for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza as soon as practicable, based on the formula of all hostages being released, and call for lifting all barriers to the provision of humanitarian assistance at scale.”
A top U.S. administration source who spoke anonymously on Monday said that the country does “not plan to rush” to a vote and wants to give time for negotiations.
For a proposal to pass, it needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes from the United States, France, Britain, Russia, or China.
The U.S. draft plan “determines that under current circumstances, a major ground offensive into Rafah would result in further harm to civilians and their further displacement, including potentially into neighboring countries.”
More than a million of the 2.3 million Palestinians who live in Gaza have sought refuge in Rafah, which is where Israel plans to attack. This has caused worry around the world that an attack would make the humanitarian situation in Gaza much worse. The U.N. has said that it “could lead to a slaughter.”
The draft U.S. resolution says such a step “would have serious implications for regional peace and security and therefore underscores that such a major ground offensive should not proceed under current circumstances.”
The United States usually keeps Israel out of U.N. actions and has blocked two council measures since the attack on Israel by Hamas terrorists on October 7. But it has also abstained twice, which let the council pass measures that wanted to send more aid to Gaza and ask for longer breaks in the fighting.

“ALERT SHOT”

Since October 7, this is the second time Washington has asked the Security Council to pass a measure on Gaza. Russia and China blocked the first move, which happened in late October.
According to Richard Gowan, director of the International Crisis Group at the UN, Israel would be more worried about the text that the United States wrote. On Tuesday, the United States was ready to protect Israel by vetoing the Algerian draft resolution.
“The simple fact that the U.S. is tabling this text at all is a warning shot for Netanyahu,” he stated. “It is the strongest signal the U.S. has sent to the U.N. so far that Israel cannot rely on American diplomatic protection indefinitely.”
When asked for a statement on the U.S. draft, Israel’s mission to the U.N. in New York did not immediately reply.
A second top U.S. administration source, who did not want to be named, said that the U.S. draft does not say “anything about the dynamics of any particular relationship,” whether with Israel or any other partner the U.S. has.
Some Israeli officials have asked Jewish settlers to move to Gaza. The draft U.S. text would condemn these calls and any attempt to change Gaza’s population or land use that would be against international law.
It also opposes “any actions by any party that reduce the territory of Gaza on a temporary or permanent basis, including through the establishment, officially or unofficially, of so-called buffer zones, as well as the widespread, systematic demolition of civilian infrastructure.”
In December, Reuters said that Israel told several Arab states that it wants to make a safe zone inside the borders of Gaza to stop attacks once the war is over.
Israeli officials say that the war started on October 7 when fighters from Hamas, the terrorist group that runs Gaza, struck Israel. They killed 1,200 people and took 253 hostages. In response, Israel attacked Gaza with its troops, killing nearly 29,000 Palestinians. Medical officials say that thousands more bodies are likely still missing in the rubble.
In December, over three-quarters of the 193 members of the U.N. General Assembly agreed to call for an instant humanitarian ceasefire. Although General Assembly decisions are not legally binding, they have political weight and show how people worldwide feel about the war.