NPR’s Scott Detrow speaks with U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas Greenfield about the situation in Gaza and the UN resolution SCOTT DETROW, HOST: The United Nations Security Council today passed a resolution calling for steps to be taken to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza. The resolution stops short of calling for an immediate cease-fire in the war between Israel and Hamas. That war began after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing some 1,200 people. And since then, more than 20,000 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory amid heavy Israeli bombardments. That’s according to Gaza’s health ministry. The U.N. resolution passed today was the subject of lengthy negotiations among diplomats on the Security Council, all aimed at avoiding a U.S. veto. In the end, the U.S. abstained from voting altogether, as did another permanent member of the Security Council, Russia. All images is the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. and joins us now. Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. LINDA THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Thank you, Scott. Delighted to be here with you. DETROW: Why did the U.S. abstain from this resolution? THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Well, the resolution was not perfect. The resolution did not condemn Hamas’s really horrific acts of October 7, and we have regularly raised that as a concern in the council. And we also thought the resolution should have called for additional pauses that would allow for more humanitarian assistance to get in quickly and allow for hostages to be released. But that said, there were some positives in the resolution. DETROW: But what specifically in the resolution did the U.S. have enough of an issue with to not vote for it? Because I’m looking through it, and there’s a lot of language here that I assume the U.S. supports, underlining the urgent need for full, […]
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