The UN Security Council will vote on Monday, November 17th, on a resolution endorsing U.S. president Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan.
Last week, the Americans officially launched negotiations within the 15-member Security Council on a text that would follow up on a ceasefire in the two-year war between Israel and Hamas and endorse Trump’s plan.
A draft of the resolution, seen by AFP on Thursday, “welcomes the establishment of the Board of Peace,” a transitional governing body for Gaza—that Trump would theoretically chair—with a mandate running until the end of 2027. It would authorize member states to form a “temporary International Stabilization Force (ISF)” that would work with Israel and Egypt and newly trained Palestinian police to help secure border areas and demilitarize the Gaza Strip.
The United States and several Arab and Muslim-majority nations, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, called for the UN Security Council to quickly adopt the resolution.
Friday’s joint statement comes as Russia circulated a competing draft resolution to Council members that does not authorize the creation of a board of peace or the immediate deployment of an international force in Gaza. The Russian version welcomes “the initiative that led to the ceasefire” but does not name Trump. It also only calls on the UN secretary-general to submit a report that addresses the possibilities of deploying an international stabilization force in war-ravaged Gaza.
The United States has called the ceasefire “fragile” and warned of the risks of not adopting its draft.
“Any refusal to back this resolution is a vote either for the continued reign of Hamas terrorists or for the return to war with Israel, condemning the region and its people to perpetual conflict,” the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, wrote in The Washington Post.
“Every departure from this path, be it by those who wish to play political games or to relitigate the past, will come with a real human cost.”
Unlike previous drafts, the latest mentions a possible future Palestinian state. The Russian UN mission said in a statement that its alternative proposal differed by recognizing the principle of a “two-State solution for the Israeli-Palestinian settlement.”
