United Nations Security Council Resolution 2735

Based on Wikipedia: United Nations Security Council Resolution 2735

The Resolution That Changed Nothing—Until It Changed Everything

On June 10, 2024, the United Nations Security Council did something remarkable: it passed a resolution about Gaza that the United States actually wanted. This almost never happens. For decades, American vetoes have been the graveyard where UN resolutions critical of Israeli policy go to die. But Resolution 2735 was different. Washington drafted it, championed it, and pushed it through with fourteen votes in favor and one abstention from Russia.

The resolution called on Hamas to accept a ceasefire deal. It detailed three phases of negotiations. It envisioned the release of hostages, the withdrawal of Israeli forces, and a massive reconstruction effort for the devastated Gaza Strip.

And then, for seven months, nothing happened.

Or so it seemed. Because in January 2025, Israel and Hamas finally reached a ceasefire agreement—one that looked remarkably similar to what Resolution 2735 had outlined. The resolution hadn't been ignored; it had been laying the groundwork all along.

How Biden Tried to End a War

To understand Resolution 2735, you need to go back two weeks before its adoption. On May 31, 2024, President Joe Biden stepped before television cameras and did something unusual for an American president in the middle of a Middle East conflict: he publicly disclosed the details of a peace proposal that Israel had quietly transmitted to mediators.

The proposal had three phases.

Phase one would last six weeks. Israeli forces would pull back from populated areas of Gaza. Hamas would release some of the hostages taken during the October 7 attacks—specifically women, elderly people, and the wounded. Israel would free hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Humanitarian aid would flow in. Displaced Palestinians could return to their homes, including in northern Gaza, which had been effectively emptied of civilians.

Phase two, if both sides agreed to proceed, would make the ceasefire permanent. All remaining hostages would come home. Every Israeli soldier would leave Gaza.

Phase three would launch a multi-year reconstruction plan. Gaza's shattered infrastructure—the hospitals, schools, apartment buildings, water treatment plants—would be rebuilt with international support.

Biden's gambit was clever and risky. By announcing the proposal publicly, he created pressure on both sides to accept it. But he also boxed himself in. If the deal fell apart, everyone would know exactly whose vision had failed.

The Strange Politics of "Accepting" a Deal

Here's where things get complicated. Biden said Israel had accepted the proposal. The resolution explicitly states that Israel accepted the proposal. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately pushed back, saying the publicly described terms were inaccurate and that military operations would continue until Hamas was defeated.

So had Israel accepted the deal or not?

This is the peculiar diplomacy of the Middle East, where saying yes and no simultaneously is an art form. Israel had transmitted the proposal to mediators—meaning Israeli negotiators had crafted it. But Netanyahu, facing pressure from his far-right coalition partners, couldn't be seen embracing a ceasefire. Ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir had threatened to collapse the government if Netanyahu agreed to stop fighting before Hamas was destroyed.

Netanyahu was trapped between American pressure to end the war and domestic pressure to continue it. His solution was ambiguity: officially accept the framework while publicly insisting it didn't mean what everyone thought it meant.

What the Security Council Actually Said

Resolution 2735 runs through the standard diplomatic formalities—reaffirming the UN Charter, recalling previous resolutions about Israel and Palestine—before getting to the substance. The key language welcomes the ceasefire proposal "which Israel accepted" and calls upon Hamas "to also accept it."

This framing matters enormously. By stating that Israel had already accepted the deal, the resolution placed the burden squarely on Hamas. Accept this proposal, it said, and the war can end.

Beyond the immediate ceasefire mechanics, the resolution made several broader commitments. It rejected any demographic or territorial changes to Gaza—a direct rebuke to some Israeli politicians who had floated ideas about shrinking the Strip or encouraging Palestinian emigration. It reaffirmed support for a two-state solution, with Israel and Palestine living side by side. And notably, it called for unifying Gaza and the West Bank under Palestinian Authority governance.

That last point was significant. Since 2007, Gaza had been controlled by Hamas after it seized power from the Palestinian Authority in a brief civil war. The resolution envisioned reversing that split, bringing Gaza back under the same government that administers the West Bank. Hamas, understandably, had opinions about this.

Pressure from Unexpected Quarters

The Biden administration wasn't relying solely on UN resolutions to move Hamas. Behind the scenes, American diplomats were working a different angle: getting Hamas's hosts to turn up the heat.

Qatar had long served as Hamas's primary base of operations outside Gaza. The group's political leadership—as distinct from its military wing in Gaza—had been headquartered in Doha for years. This arrangement suited multiple parties: Qatar gained leverage in regional affairs, the United States had a channel to communicate with Hamas, and Hamas leaders got to live in comfortable exile rather than under Israeli bombardment.

But that hospitality came with strings attached. According to reports, both Qatar and Egypt threatened Hamas leaders with arrest, asset freezes, sanctions, and expulsion if they refused to engage seriously with the ceasefire proposal. The message was clear: you can't say no forever while living under our protection.

Egypt had its own reasons to want the fighting stopped. The Egyptian government was terrified of a mass exodus from Gaza into the Sinai Peninsula. President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi had built his domestic legitimacy partly on stability; absorbing a million traumatized refugees would undermine everything.

What Russia's Abstention Meant

When the Security Council votes, the five permanent members—the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China—hold veto power. Any one of them can kill a resolution by voting no. This is why so few resolutions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ever pass; usually the US vetoes anything critical of Israel, and increasingly Russia and China block anything too favorable to Western priorities.

Russia's decision to abstain rather than veto Resolution 2735 was telling. Moscow wasn't enthusiastic about an American-drafted proposal that positioned Washington as the peacemaker. But Russia also couldn't be seen blocking a ceasefire while its own invasion of Ukraine drew international condemnation. Vetoing a peace proposal would have looked hypocritical even by the elastic standards of geopolitics.

China voted yes, along with the other thirteen council members. The unanimous support (minus Russia's abstention) gave the resolution unusual moral weight. This wasn't a divided council passing something by the narrowest margin; this was near-consensus that the war needed to end along these lines.

Hamas's Calculated Response

Hamas's initial reaction to Resolution 2735 was carefully calibrated. The organization "welcomed" the contents—diplomatic language for "we're not rejecting this outright." Senior spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said Hamas had accepted the resolution and was ready to engage with mediators.

But accepting a UN resolution and accepting a binding agreement are very different things. Hamas had concerns about the proposal's ambiguities. What exactly counted as "populated areas" that Israel would withdraw from? Would the ceasefire hold if negotiations for phase two dragged on? Who would guarantee that Israel wouldn't simply resume operations after the hostages were released?

The resolution tried to address that last concern by noting that "if the negotiations take longer than six weeks for phase one, the ceasefire will still continue as long as negotiations continue." This was supposed to prevent either side from running out the clock and then resuming hostilities.

The Palestinian Authority's Awkward Position

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed the resolution. This was expected—the resolution called for the PA to eventually govern Gaza, which would restore Abbas's relevance after years of being sidelined.

But Abbas's endorsement highlighted an uncomfortable reality. The Palestinian Authority had no forces in Gaza, no administrative presence there, and no practical way to take control even if Hamas agreed. The 2007 split had been violent; Hamas members had literally thrown Fatah (the PA's dominant party) officials off rooftops. Reconciliation would require more than a UN resolution.

Moreover, the PA's legitimacy among ordinary Palestinians was shaky. Abbas had last faced an election in 2005. He was in his late eighties, widely seen as corrupt and ineffective, and presided over a government that cooperated with Israeli security forces in ways many Palestinians found humiliating. Gaza's residents might not welcome PA rule as the liberation the resolution implied.

Why Resolutions Matter (and Why They Don't)

United Nations Security Council resolutions occupy a strange space in international law. They're theoretically binding on all UN member states. Unlike General Assembly resolutions, which are advisory, Security Council decisions carry the force of obligation. Countries are supposed to comply.

In practice, compliance is spotty at best. Israel has ignored numerous Security Council resolutions over the decades. So have many other countries when their vital interests are at stake. The UN has no army to enforce its decisions; it relies on member states choosing to follow the rules.

Yet resolutions still matter. They establish normative frameworks—shared understandings of what's legitimate and what isn't. They create reference points for future negotiations. And they signal international consensus, or its absence, on contentious issues.

Resolution 2735 mattered because it represented the United States publicly committing to a specific ceasefire framework. Washington couldn't later claim it hadn't endorsed these terms; they were in a document America had drafted and voted for. That created accountability, however imperfect.

The Long Road to January 2025

After June 2024, the war ground on. Fighting continued in Gaza. Hostages remained in captivity. The death toll climbed. Resolution 2735 seemed like another piece of diplomatic paper that would gather dust in the UN archives.

But negotiations never completely stopped. Qatari and Egyptian mediators kept shuttling between the parties. The framework established by Biden's proposal—and codified in Resolution 2735—remained the basis for discussion. When breakthrough finally came in January 2025, the agreement looked remarkably similar to what the resolution had outlined.

This is how international diplomacy often works. Grand pronouncements lead nowhere immediately. Agreements collapse and get revived. Proposals that seemed dead get resurrected months or years later. Resolution 2735 didn't end the Gaza war when it passed. But it helped shape what ending the war would eventually look like.

The Deeper Questions Left Unanswered

Resolution 2735 addressed the immediate crisis but left larger questions for another day. What would "permanent" peace between Israel and Hamas actually mean? Could Hamas be part of any future Palestinian government, or would it need to disarm and transform itself? How would Gaza be rebuilt when so much of its infrastructure—and its economy—had been destroyed?

The resolution reaffirmed the two-state solution, but that concept has grown increasingly theoretical as Israeli settlements expand in the West Bank. It called for unifying Gaza and the West Bank, but said nothing about how to overcome the deep divisions between Hamas and Fatah. It envisioned reconstruction, but didn't address who would fund the tens of billions of dollars required.

These ambiguities weren't accidents. They were the price of getting fourteen countries to vote yes. Specificity would have meant controversy; vagueness allowed consensus.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Peace

The story of Resolution 2735 is, in miniature, the story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict itself: moments of apparent progress, followed by stalemate, punctuated by violence, with solutions always seeming just out of reach.

The resolution captured a genuine international consensus that the Gaza war needed to end. It articulated a plausible path forward. It created diplomatic pressure on all parties. And ultimately, the agreement reached seven months later followed its basic outline.

Whether that agreement holds, whether it leads to the broader peace the resolution envisioned, whether Gaza gets rebuilt and Palestinians get their state—those questions remained unanswered as the ceasefire took effect. Resolution 2735 was a beginning, not an ending. The hardest work was still ahead.