The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Monday voted to support President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Gaza, while the terrorists of Hamas rejected the plan completely, in part because it called for an international peacekeeping force.
UNSC approved the Trump plan on a vote of 13-0, with Russia and China abstaining. Russia introduced its own alternative resolution on Friday — a ten-point plan that demanded Palestinian statehood and did not include any provision for a multinational “stabilization force” in Gaza. The Russians were unable to peel any support away from the Trump plan with their proposal and evidently chose not to exercise their Security Council veto.
Trump congratulated UNSC on its “incredible” vote on Monday evening.
“This will go down as one of the biggest approvals in the History of the United Nations, will lead to further Peace all over the World, and is a moment of true Historic proportion!” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Trump made a point of individually thanking every UNSC member for their vote, including Russia and China, even though they abstained. He also thanked supportive countries that “weren’t on the committee but strongly backed the effort,” including Qatar, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Turkey, and Jordan.
“The members of the Board, and many more exciting announcements, will be made in the coming weeks,” Trump promised, referring to the “Board of Peace” to oversee security in Gaza that will be established by his plan.
Trump’s plan made an optimistic reference to creating a path for Palestinian statehood in the future, a detail that sparked a political crisis in Israel over the weekend, although Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not mention it when he applauded the passage of Trump’s plan.
“We believe that President Trump‘s plan will lead to peace and prosperity because it insists upon full demilitarization, disarmament and the deradicalization of Gaza,” the prime minister’s office said on social media.
“True to President Trump’s vision, this will lead to further integration of Israel and its neighbors as well as expansion of Abraham Accords. President Trump’s breakthrough leadership will help lead the region to peace and prosperity and a lasting alliance with the United States,” Netanyahu’s statement said.
Hamas rejected the U.N. resolution on Tuesday because it ostensibly “falls far short of the political and humanitarian demands and rights of our Palestinian people.”
“Assigning the international force with tasks and roles inside the Gaza Strip, including disarming the resistance, strips it of its neutrality, and turns it into a party to the conflict in favor of the occupation,” the terrorist group said. “The occupation” means “Israel.”
Hamas and allied Palestinian jihadists issued a joint statement denouncing the peace plan as a “form of deep international partnership in the war of extermination waged by the occupation against our people.”
Al Jazeera News interviewed several Palestinians who echoed the Hamas line, rejecting the U.N. resolution as a violation of their sovereignty and refusing to give up their “legitimate right to resist occupation” by disarming the Hamas “resistance.”
The Palestinian Authority (PA), on the other hand, welcomed the U.N. resolution as “the first step in a long road towards peace.”
“That step was needed because we could not embark on anything else before we had a ceasefire,” said PA Foreign Minister Varsen Aghabekian Shahin.
The PA “stressed the urgent need to immediately implement this resolution on the ground,” in order to ensure “the return of normal life” in the Gaza Strip.
PA officials said they were prepared to work with the United States, European Union, Muslim countries, and members of UNSC to implement the resolution in a way that “enables reconstruction, halts the undermining of the two-state solution, and prevents annexation.”
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