The UN’s policy (in Gaza) is the continuation of the occupation

The UN is one of the few institutions that has truly done something for Palestine, but it has done it badly. In 1947 it divided its territory, and in 1982 it abandoned civilians in Beirut so that they could be massacred.

Víctor de Currea-Lugo

In 2002, the Bertini Report authorised Israeli soldiers to stop ambulances “for up to thirty minutes”, which is a medical eternity if we think of a childbirth or a heart attack. And now, in 2025, it is once again repeating its poor decisions.

The Security Council has just approved Resolution 2803 (of 17 November 2025) which, in short, endorses Trump and Netanyahu’s decision on Gaza and “welcomes the Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict”. This does not end the conflict, nor the occupation. “The situation in the Gaza Strip constitutes a threat to regional peace and security”, but apparently the genocide of Palestinians, the attacks on many of Israel’s neighbours, and the systematic violation of international norms are not considered a threat.

The UN “makes its own” Trump’s Comprehensive Plan for Gaza (I recommend reading my analysis “Peace plan for Gaza: between the stick and the poisoned carrot”). In that proposal, there is no mention of the Palestinians’ self-determination, who seem reduced to mere spectators of a plan proposed by the allies of their genociders.

It refers to the “relevant principles of international law”, but the occupation, the settlements, the status of Jerusalem, or the return of refugees are not considered relevant. Needless to say, the right to resist an armed occupation was erased with the stroke of a pen.

The proposal accepts the two-State plan put forward by Saudi Arabia and France, a proposal that, at best, creates a space for Palestinians without granting them the essential characteristic that defines a State: the monopoly on the use of force.

Even humanitarian aid, from the outset, comes with a condition: “that such assistance be used exclusively for peaceful purposes and not diverted by armed groups”. There is not the slightest mention of famine, nor of the Israeli controls that have made the current crisis possible. The proposal creates a “Palestinian technocratic committee”, something akin to a group of Palestinians who are not granted a clear role nor any real power. In other words, mere spectators. The agenda makes no room for the war crimes committed by Israel.

An “International Stabilisation Force” (very different from the force proposed under “Uniting for Peace”), which will operate “in close consultation and cooperation with the Arab Republic of Egypt and the State of Israel”.
And a Palestinian police force will be formed, whose first task will be “to ensure the security of border areas” and later to secure “the process of demilitarisation of the Gaza Strip”, which will inevitably lead to a war between Palestinians.

Meanwhile, the Israeli army would withdraw “except for a peripheral security presence that will remain until Gaza is duly protected from any resurgence of the terrorist threat”.

What becomes of Gustavo Petro’s plan?

The first blow to the Colombian proposal was Trump’s plan, because it imposed a reading of the conflict based on the fight against terror and not on an occupation or a genocide.

Although both Trump and President Petro propose the deployment of troops, their nature and respective tasks do not coincide (I recommend my column “Troops for Gaza… at whose service?”). While Gustavo Petro proposes to free Gaza so that Palestinians may exercise their right to self-determination, Trump proposes an international force that depends on what the occupying State dictates: Israel. Now, Petro’s proposal was legally viable because (an indispensable requirement) the Security Council had been blocked in its debates on Gaza due to the sustained veto of the United States.

But now the issue is back on the Security Council’s agenda and, therefore, the General Assembly can say little, and much less activate the Colombian “Uniting for Peace” proposal.

It would even be utopian to imagine both proposals coexisting, because nobody can conceive of the deployment of troops under the UN flag in the same scenario with different mandates.

How was this possible? The abstention of Russia and China (which, in practice, is equivalent to approval) gave the United States the leeway it needed to appropriate Gaza. The abstention of both powers is, ultimately, the signing of a blank cheque for Trump and his ally Benjamin Netanyahu to do as they please in Gaza. One day (in another column) we shall speak of responsibility by omission, which is no minor matter in the face of a genocide.

What remains for us?

What remains for us? To wait — what a pessimistic word in this context. To wait for Trump’s plan to collapse under its own weight and for the world to understand that it is not a plan to end the conflict but to perpetuate the occupation. The troops that arrive will not, in essence, differ from those that accompanied the United States in its invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Reconstruction will be yet another business, and international law will face yet another failure.

In the end, what the UN approved today is not a path towards peace but a more elegant administration of the occupation. Gaza is not offered self-determination but a manual on how to continue surviving under foreign control. And they call it a “comprehensive plan”.

Russia and China abstained, the United States wrote the script, and Israel executes it. Palestinians are once again left where they always are: off the table and inside the line of fire. The international community celebrates “stabilising” a crime it does not dare to name: the occupation.

PS: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the institution for which he works. The author is the presidential adviser for the Middle East of the Colombian government.