The UN Human Rights Council was on Friday debating whether to demand a halt in arms sales to Israel, whose war in Gaza has killed more than 33,000 people, mostly civilians.
If the text is adopted, it would mark the first time that the United Nations’ top rights body has taken a position on the bloodiest-ever war to beset the besieged Palestinian territory.
The draft text calls on countries to “cease the sale, transfer and diversion of arms, munitions and other military equipment to Israel”.
This, it said, is needed among other things “to prevent further violations of international humanitarian law and violations and abuses of human rights”.
It stresses that the International Court of Justice ruled in January “that there is a plausible risk of genocide” in Gaza.
Friday’s draft resolution, which was brought forward by Pakistan on behalf of all Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member states except Albania, calls for “an immediate ceasefire” and “for immediate emergency humanitarian access and assistance”.
It comes after the UN Security Council in New York last week also finally passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire — thanks to an abstention from Washington, Israel’s closest ally and largest arms supplier.
However, the ceasefire demand has had no impact on the ground.
The war in Gaza war began after Hamas’s October 7 attack, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,170 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Palestinian militants also took more than 250 hostages on October 7, and 130 remain in Gaza, including 34 who the army says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 33,037 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.