Impatient Security Council could take action to end Gaza war, envoy warns

Patience is running out among United Nations Security Council members and the 15-member body will likely consider taking action if a ceasefire cannot soon be brokered between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, says Slovenia’s UN envoy, who heads the council for September.

“There is a rising anxiousness in the council that it has to move one way or the other – either there is a ceasefire or that the council then reflects on what else we can do to bring the ceasefire,” says Samuel Zbogar. “I’m pretty sure that in September it will have to go… one way or the other, not because we want [it to], but because I think the patience is out,” he says.

The Security Council in June adopted resolution 2735, which backed a three-phase plan, laid out by US President Joe Biden, for a Gaza ceasefire and the release of hostages held by Hamas. But Zbogar says the council may trash the resolution and seek another path, noting that “there are many tools that council has at [its] disposal.”

“But to start, I think one would be to establish that we have to move on from 2735 because for the past three months, the council was waiting [for] implementation of that resolution,” he says.