(JNS) The UN Security Council voted 13-0 on Monday to adopt a US-drafted resolution on the future of Gaza, as Russia and China forewent their veto power and abstained on the vote.

“We stand at a crossroads. Today, we have the power to douse the flames and light a path to peace,” said Mike Waltz, US ambassador to the United Nations, before the vote.

The resolution codifies a mandate for Washington and partners to create and implement an international stabilization force in Gaza and what US President Donald Trump has called a Board of Peace, which he will lead and which will serve as a transitional government authority.

The resolution also sets parameters for Israeli troops to withdraw from Gaza, leaving some in place to guard against resurgent terror threats.

“This will go down as one of the biggest approvals in the history of the United Nations, will lead to further peace all over the world and is a moment of true historic proportion,” Trump stated.

“The demilitarization of Hamas is a basic condition of the peace agreement,” stated Danny Danon, the Israeli envoy to the United Nations, after the vote. “There will be no future in Gaza as long as Hamas possesses weapons.”

Speaking during the council session, Waltz said that “for two years, Gaza has been a crucible of conflict, a hell on earth where Hamas’s brutality and terror met Israel’s fierce response.”

“We have a ceasefire that is holding. This plan has already silenced the guns and freed the hostages in this fragile first step,” he said. “The remaining hostages must come home.”

The resolution also states that “conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood” after the Palestinian Authority undergoes reforms and Gaza’s reconstruction is “advanced.”

Waltz said that more than a dozen European heads of state, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Arab allies of Trump’s supported the plan.

“With this kind of support, I ask you if the region most affected—the Arab nations, the Muslim majority nations, the Palestinians and the Israelis—can accept this resolution, how could anyone be against it?” Waltz told the council.

“I ask everyone today, are you more righteous in this cause than those who must live with it and will ultimately benefit from this plan for peace?” he said.

Moscow had voiced concern that Washington would be given the power to dictate the future of the coastal enclave and drafted its own stripped-down resolution, which would have put the issue in the hands of UN leadership.

Israeli officials have pushed back forcefully on the language regarding a Palestinian state, which was negotiated only into the final US draft of the resolution.

There is little clarity as to whether the international stabilization force, or another, will be charged with demilitarizing Hamas should the terror group fail to willingly disarm.

See: ‘Building bases for a non-existent force’

Waltz spoke about the vote at the Tikvah 2025 Jewish Leadership Conference in New York City on Sunday.

“Folks, tomorrow, knock on whatever I can, we will have a resolution backed by the eight Arab- and Muslim-majority countries that sat with President Trump during the UN General Assembly,” he said. “The key Arab countries, plus Turkey, plus Pakistan, plus Indonesia standing with us. We then got the Palestinian Authority to support this, and of course, we are working very closely with the government of Israel.”

“This will be the best resolution that I think the United States and Israel has seen in the 80-year history of the United Nations,” he said. “If we can hold it together another 24 hours, then this will be truly incredible, and you’re then going to have the international community coming in and dealing with and stabilizing Gaza.”

The choices were either Hamas or the Israeli military, he said.

“If it were the IDF in perpetuity, then frankly I don’t think we have a pathway to expanding the Abraham Accords, which is the number one objective of this administration,” he added. “Tomorrow could truly, truly be a historic day.”

Want more news from Israel?
Click Here to sign up for our FREE daily email updates