UNHRC calls for arms embargo against Israel, asks it to prevent genocide

The United Nations Human Rights Council voted 28-6 for an arms embargo against Israel as it called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and demanded that the Jewish state uphold its responsibility to prevent genocide, when it met Friday in Geneva.

Thirteen of the 47 council member states abstained from the vote on the resolution, which did not mention Hamas or condemn it for the invasion of Israel on October 7, in which 1,200 people were killed and 253 seized as hostages.

Argentina, Bulgaria, Germany, Malawi, Paraguay, and the United States all opposed the resolution.

Three European Union countries – Belgium, Finland, and Luxembourg – supported the text. Four EU countries – France, Lithuania, the Netherlands, and Romania – abstained from the vote held as the UNHRC wrapped up its 55th session.

'Accountability resolution'

Through what has been dubbed the “accountability resolution,” the council has, since at least 2018, urged UN member states to refrain from transferring arms to Israel in cases where they suspected that it might be used in human rights violations.

In light of the Gaza war, the accountability resolution this year used much harsher language against the Jewish state, as it rewrote what Israel had already viewed as a problematic and biased text.

It called on “all states to cease the sale, transfer and diversion of arms, munitions and other military equipment to Israel.”

The UNHRC further called on UN member states to refrain from “the export, sale or transfer of surveillance goods and technologies and less-lethal weapons, including dual-use items, when they assess that there are reasonable grounds to suspect that such goods... might be used to violate... human rights.”

The broad text called for an immediate “ceasefire” in Gaza, accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” in the Strip, and urged UN member states to prevent the forcible transfer of Palestinians from the enclave.

The council expressed its grave concern over statements by Israeli officials “amounting to incitement to genocide” and urged it to “uphold its legal responsibility to prevent genocide.”

Condemning attacks on Israel and drawing criticism

In a nod toward attacks against Israel by Hamas and other terror groups, the UNHRC condemned the “firing of rockets against Israeli civilian areas.”

It also condemned the “targeting of civilians, including on 7 October 2023, and demands the release of all remaining hostages [in Gaza] and [Palestinian] detainees [in Israel].”

US Ambassador to the UN in Geneva Michelle Taylor said she was “deeply concerned” by the many problematic elements in the text, such as the absence of a Hamas condemnation or its terrorism.

She highlighted, in particular, the problematic equivalence in the text between the hostages seized by Hamas and Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

“Unfortunately, the text makes no distinction between hostages who were brutally abducted by a terrorist organization that heeds no international law, whose whereabouts are unknown – and who, according to credible UN reporting, are likely experiencing repeated sexual violence – and detainees whose fate is regulated and governed by legal processes.

“Let me be clear: these groups are not equivalent,” Taylor stated. Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Meirav Eilon Shahar also took the UNHRC to task for failing to condemn Hamas, as she addressed its 47 members.

“This council has long abandoned the Israeli people and long defended Hamas. It has become a shield for terrorists. It has turned a blind eye to any acts of violence against Israelis and Jews,” she stated. “How many dead Israelis will it take to condemn Hamas? 1,200 murdered is not enough?

“What atrocities will warrant condemnation? The rape, mutilation, and torture of Israelis was not enough?” she asked. “How many victims must there be for this council to address Palestinian terrorism?

“How many stockpiles of weapons, terrorist headquarters, and tunnel shafts must be revealed in hospitals, schools, and UN facilities before this council takes it upon itself to denounce the use of civilian infrastructure by terrorist organizations?”

Eilon Shahar charged that the resolution was a statement that Israel should allow its enemies to overrun its country because it has no right to self-defense. “According to this resolution before you today, Israel has no right to protect its people, while Hamas has every right to murder and torture innocent Israelis,” she stated.

The council message is that “Israel should have stood idly by on October 7, as Hamas unleashed its barbaric acts,” she said. “On October 8, it should have allowed Hamas to do it again.” Palestinian Authority Ambassador Ibrahim Mohammad Khraishi, in his address to the UNHRC, accused Israel of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

“How is it that you can justify to your children genocide televised and broadcast across the world?” Khraishi asked as he denied that Hamas was using civilians as human shields in Gaza and rejected any scenario in which Israel had killed Hamas combatants in the enclave.

“We need you all to wake up and stop this genocide,” he stated. Hamas has reported over 32,000 Palestinian deaths as a result of the war, while Israel has said that at least 13,000 of those fatalities are combatants. Brazil’s Ambassador Antonio Patriota, whose country supported the resolution, said he believed that accountability was necessary to break the cycle of Israeli impunity.

The council also approved three other pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli resolutions under Agenda Item 7, which focuses on Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. The UNHRC is mandated to hold such a debate at each session. Israel is the only country for which there is a separate agenda item in the council.

In a 29-14 vote with four abstentions, it approved a resolution on Israeli “human rights violations in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, which the IDF captured from Syria during the Six Day War.

Through a 42-2 vote with three abstentions, the UNHRC also passed a resolution on Palestinian self-determination which calls on Israel to unilaterally withdraw to the pre-1967 lines.

And in a 36-3 vote, with eight abstentions, the council approved a resolution entitled “Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Golan Heights,” which called for the boycott of settlement products.

Only the United States and Paraguay voted “no” on all four resolutions. During its 55th session, the council also passed resolutions on Iran, Syria, Myanmar, North Korea, Belarus, South Sudan, and Ukraine. Israel was the only country that was the subject of more than one resolution.