The weeklong ceasefire has long ended, with the bombardment as relentless as before. Now Israel’s offensive is focusing on the south, the place Gazans were told to flee to for their safety.

Israel has divided southern Gaza into strips and told people they can learn which zones will face destruction on which days – but many can’t find out due to lack of electricity and internet access. Bombs continue to fall on residential areas and health facilities trying to tend to the many wounded.

Every day brings fresh evidence of atrocities. Recent reports have suggested several Palestinian detainees have been killed in detention camps in Israel. Two women were reportedly shot in cold blood by a sniper in an attack on a Catholic church. Israeli forces also mistakenly shot dead three hostages as they waved a white flag. All in all, the death toll is now reportedly close to 20,000 and almost two million have been forced from their homes.

Winter has come, and with it heavy rains, washing away the makeshift tents that have become the homes of many survivors. The United Nations (UN) has declared there are ‘catastrophic’ hunger levels. What infrastructure remains is hopelessly inadequate. Diseases are spreading.

The case for a ceasefire is now overwhelming. But the Israeli government refuses to listen. And the lack of international consensus enables it to get away with its crimes.

Security Council slow to act

At the time of writing, a new UN Security Council resolution – on a ceasefire to enable aid to be delivered – continues to be delayed, with voting repeatedly pushed back in search of consensus between the Council’s five permanent members, so that Israel’s staunchest ally, the USA, will be persuaded not to use its veto.

That’s been the pattern. Once the carnage had resumed, on 6 December the UN Secretary-General António Guterres invoked article 99 of the UN Charter. This was an incredibly rare move, using a prerogative that allows the Secretary-General to bring a matter to the Security Council’s attention that threatens ‘the maintenance of international peace and security’. It communicated both the desperate seriousness of the situation and the Security Council’s failure to act. In response, the United Arab Emirates brought a resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, but the USA vetoed it.

The Security Council has so far managed to pass one resolution on the conflict, on 15 November, six weeks after the killings began and at a time when the death toll already stood at around 10,000. This was the fifth attempt. The USA vetoed a resolution drafted by Brazil, while China and Russia vetoed one drafted by the USA, and two Russia-drafted resolutions failed to secure enough support.

Even then, three of the five permanent members failed to back the 15 November resolution; the fact that they abstained was the only reason it could pass. The USA and UK didn’t support the resolution because it contained no criticism of Hamas, while Russia didn’t back it because it didn’t call for a ceasefire. The resolution only called for – rather than demanded – ‘humanitarian pauses’ to enable aid access and the release of hostages.

This was a weak resolution that didn’t remotely match the urgency and scale of the conflict, but it was a landmark of a kind, since it was the first time the Security Council had been able to pass any kind of resolution on Israel-Palestine relations since 2016. The USA has repeatedly used its veto on this issue.

Security Council resolutions are supposed to be legally binding – but Israel immediately announced it would ignore it. The December truce that enabled the release of some hostages and the temporary suspension of the bombardment largely came about not as a result of intervention by the UN but due to the state of Qatar brokering a deal.

Israel is used to paying no heed to the UN and experiencing no consequences. It’s ignored a string of binding Security Council resolutions, along with resolutions from the Human Rights Council and General Assembly. Among them is the 2016 Security Council resolution that confirmed that Israel’s settlements in Occupied Palestinian Territories constitute a flagrant breach of international law and further occupations must immediately cease.

The mood shifts

In the absence of greater Security Council action, efforts to address the conflict have moved to the floor of the UN General Assembly, in which each member state has a vote, and to the UN human rights system in Geneva.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, has called for a ceasefire and an end to collective punishment. Multiple UN special rapporteurs and independent experts have drawn attention to the risk of genocide and urged a ceasefire. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has called for a ceasefire and condemned the escalation of attacks by Israel against civilian targets. Most recently the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has warned of severe concerns about the obligations of states to prevent crimes against humanity and genocide. These are just a few of the expressions of concern and calls for action made by the UN human rights machinery.

But unfortunately, while these calls carry moral weight, they’re all too easy to ignore. Human rights make up one of the three pillars of the UN, alongside peace and security and sustainable development. But they’re very much the poor relation. The human rights pillar gets only 4.3 per cent of the UN’s regular budget. That signals a lack of priority and gives states the green light to ignore its calls.

Meanwhile on the floor of the General Assembly in New York, on 27 October, states passed a resolution calling for a truce and on 12 December, another urging an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. Unlike Security Council resolutions, however, General Assembly resolutions are non-binding.

National interests and international allegiances were writ large in the pattern of the October vote, when 120 voted for, 14 against and 45 abstained. Global north states and US allies almost all failed to support the resolution.

The December vote however showed some significant shifts, with 153 votes for, 10 against and 23 abstentions. Some heavy hitters changed their position. Among those that went from abstaining to backing the ceasefire are Australia, Canada, India and Japan, while voices within the European Union condemning Israel’s punitive response are getting louder.

The scale of the atrocities being committed by Israel is impossible to deny, and has got to the point where it’s clearly putting off some of the country’s staunchest allies, including Germany and the UK, which have recently intensified their calls for a ‘sustainable ceasefire’.

Even US President Joe Biden appears to be shifting from his previous position of total backing. He recently said that Israel’s ‘indiscriminate bombing’ was losing international support and is reportedly urging Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to modify his approach in private calls. Biden’s support for Israel is likely costing him votes and could help deliver the 2024 US presidential election into Donald Trump’s hands.

These promptings by several global north states of course fall a long way short of any desire to see justice and accountability for atrocities or to advance a plausible two-state solution. And regardless, so far Netanyahu is showing no willingness to listen. The motivations behind the ongoing assault – an evident quest for revenge, an attempt to placate an Israeli public angered at how the 7 October Hamas attacks unfolded and an evident determination by Netanyahu to save his political skin – decree continued collective punishment of Gazan people. Divisions between the members of the peak international body charged with ensuring peace and security only enable this.

Funding under pressure

There’s another troubling trend at play. Many global north states have shifted their position at the UN General Assembly, but there’s a curious lack of alignment between their foreign and donor policies.

As in all conflicts, there’s an urgent need for civil society to be supported, so it can provide vital humanitarian services, document human rights violations with a view to holding perpetrators to account and play its full role in peacebuilding. But several European states have responded to the conflict by suspending or reviewing their support to civil society organisations (CSOs) in both Palestine and Israel.

This is often over unsubstantiated concerns that money could be diverted towards terrorism or the result of conflating criticism of the actions of the state of Israel with antisemitism. It’s a deeply concerning trend that plays into the hands of the Israeli government, which has long slurred and restricted civil society. Civil society is needed. It shouldn’t be penalised.

Need for reform

Beyond the urgent need for action, the current impasse should bring fresh impetus to proposals for Security Council reform, including to moderate the use of veto power. The Council’s inability to act quickly and adequately on  the horrors in Gaza is far from its first failure. It’s stood on the sidelines of multiple conflicts in which its permanent members have an interest, including Syria, and mostly obviously in the case of the war in Ukraine, where Russia abuses its Security Council position as the aggressor, meaning the Council has taken no action. The USA now looks a hypocrite, urging Council action on and international condemnation of Ukraine but doing the opposite on Gaza – something that also adds weight to Russia’s claim that criticism of its invasion of Ukraine is partial and selective.

There are reform ideas on the table that must be embraced, many of them from civil society. The Ukraine situation appeared to bring fresh momentum to these. At the opening of the UN General Assembly in September, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy proposed a mechanism where a vote by two-thirds of the General Assembly could overturn a Security Council veto – but the debate that followed was vague and inconclusive, showing how difficult change can be.

Reform should finally be taken on. It must entail dilution and moderation of veto powers. There must be real penalties when states fail to comply with Security Council resolutions. Processes must be opened up to civil society advocacy and scrutiny so pressure can be exerted on its members to leave their self-interest at the door and make decisions genuinely in line with the UN Charter.

The UN was founded in the wake of the Second World War on the promise of never again letting those horrors happen. And then, 75 years ago in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was agreed. It was needed, as its opening preamble sets out, because ‘disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind’. There’s still a need to make good on this mission and hold true to the promise of never again.