EU leaders have overcome their differences to call for an “immediate humanitarian pause leading to a sustainable ceasefire” in Gaza, hours before the US is expected to bring a resolution to a vote at the UN calling for a truce and a hostage deal without delay in the face of a looming famine.
The EU declaration, at a Brussels summit late on Thursday, marked the first time European leaders had agreed a declaration on the Middle East since October. The US draft resolution to be put to a vote in the UN security council on Friday morning also reflects greater urgency in Washington’s position. It is the first time the Biden administration has put forward language calling for an “immediate ceasefire”, although it continues to link a truce with a hostage deal.
The council will vote on the US resolution at the same time as CIA and the Mossad spy chiefs William Burns and David Barnea are expected to arrive in Qatar on Friday in the hope of clinching an elusive truce-for-hostages deal between Israel and Hamas. Speaking in Egypt, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said difficult work remained to be done but added: “I continue to believe it’s possible.”
The EU declaration calls for the “unconditional release of all hostages” by Hamas, but does not make its demand for a halt to Israeli military operations dependent on a deal. In Brussels, Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, said all 27 EU members had agreed “a strong and unified statement on the Middle East” which including a call for “full and safe humanitarian access into Gaza”.
The eight-paragraph EU text expressed deep concern over the “imminent risk of famine caused by insufficient entry of aid into Gaza”.
A European diplomat said the shift in US language in its draft resolution helped clear the path to an EU consensus on a European declaration, allowing countries such as Austria and the Czech Republic to “revisit their position”.
Blinken characterised the US draft resolution as calling for “an immediate ceasefire tied to the release of hostages”.
“After many rounds of consultations with the Security Council, we will be bringing this resolution for a vote on Friday morning,” the US mission spokesperson at the UN, Nate Evans said, noting it had been under discussion by council members for several weeks.
“This resolution is an opportunity for the council to speak with one voice to support the diplomacy happening on the ground and pressure Hamas to accept the deal on the table.”
The Biden administration has argued that an unconditional ceasefire would undermine leverage on Hamas to release its captives, seized during its 7 October attack on Israel, in which hundreds of civilians were killed. If the hostage talks in Doha fail however, the Biden administration will be faced with a dilemma: whether to continue to insist on the linkage between hostages and a ceasefire in the face of a clear warning this week from a UN panel of experts that a catastrophic famine in Gaza is imminent.
Thursday night’s European declaration reinforced a consensus among Washington’s allies that an unconditional ceasefire has to be implemented before a hostage deal if necessary, in the face of a humanitarian catastrophe.
At the UN, the French envoy, Nicolas de Rivière, said: “It’s time to save lives.”
“The death toll is around 32,000 men and women. It needs to stop now. This is why I will encourage the security council to take action before the end of the week, before the weekend,” de Rivière said. “Each time there is a crisis in the world, the first thing the security council is asking for a ceasefire, and then talks. This is what we have to do on Gaza as well. There should not be an exception.”
The wording of the new US draft resolution, presented on Thursday and seen by the Guardian, gives some ground to the demands of Washington’s European and Arab partners, with stronger language demanding humanitarian access and more ambiguous wording on the linkage between a truce and a hostage deal.
It said an “immediate and sustained ceasefire” was “imperative” adding that “towards that end” unequivocal support should be given to the hostage negotiations.
A European diplomat at the UN said the stress on an “immediate” ceasefire and the phrase “towards that end” showed significant movement in the US position. “I think it is a shift in saying that a ceasefire is not contingent on a specific deal,” the diplomat said.
The change in US language also increases the pressure on the Israeli government, which has been insisting it will carry out a new offensive on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, in the face of strong US objections.
The hostage talks in Doha will focus on closing a stubborn gap between the negotiating positions of the two parties. Israel has rejected a Hamas proposal for hostage release in exchange for an agreement that would end the war. Israel is focused instead on a temporary pause, in which 40 particularly vulnerable hostages, elderly and sick people and some women, would be freed for a six-week cessation of hostilities.
“I think the gaps are narrowing, and I think an agreement is very much possible,” Blinken told the Saudi news channel Al Hadath. “The Israeli team is present, has authority to reach an agreement.”
Blinken restated the US opposition to a planned Israeli offensive on Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza where more than 1 million Palestinians have take shelter from Israeli bombing.
“A major military operation in Rafah would be a mistake, something we don’t support, and it’s also not necessary to deal with Hamas,” Blinken told a news conference in Cairo. The Biden administration has invited Israeli officials to Washington to discuss alternatives, a meeting that is expected next week.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is meanwhile threatening to use his political clout in the US and his close relationship with the Republican party to resist pressure from the administration. Netanyahu held a 45-minute call with Republican senators on Wednesday, in which he vowed to press ahead with a Rafah operation. The House speaker, Michael Johnson, said he intended to invite the Israeli leader to address a joint session of Congress, which would be an echo of Netanyahu’s previous appearance in 2015, when he used it as a platform to voice opposition to Barack Obama’s Middle East policies.
The US draft resolution is unusually detailed, containing 26 operative paragraphs, stressing the demand for “the immediate, safe, sustained and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance at scale directly to the Palestinian civilian population throughout the Gaza Strip”.
Details of the draft resolution were revealed as the UN released an analysis of satellite imagery showing that 35% of buildings in Gaza had been damaged or destroyed during Israel’s offensive, which has claimed almost 32,000 Palestinian lives.
The new text sends Israel the clearest message yet of the Biden administration’s growing frustration with its prosecution of the war, and comes after a warning from the UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, that Israel may be committing a war crime by using “starvation as a method of war”.
