Brazil supports convening the UN General Assembly to circumvent the US veto in the Security Council, sources say

In an attempt to circumvent the United States’ veto in the Security Council and approve a resolution calling for the de-escalation of the Israel-Hamas conflict, Brazil decided to support the initiative to convene an extraordinary UN General Assembly.

The United Nations’ special emergency sessions were created in the 1950s and used only 11 times in the organization’s entire history. The last call took place to deal with the war between Russia and Ukraine.

This time, two blocs — the Arab Group (made up of 20 countries) and the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (which brings together 57 Muslim-majority nations) — formally presented a request to convene the General Assembly.

These blocs bring together countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Iran, Nigeria, Morocco and Turkey. They called for the resumption of the 10th emergency session, initially convened in 1997, which discussed the conflict between Israel and Palestine,

Resolutions in the General Assembly only need a simple majority, out of the 192 possible votes, to be approved. There is no veto power, as in the Security Council.

The extraordinary call is debated by the council, made up of five permanent members and 10 non-permanent members (including Brazil), but there is no possibility of veto in this case either.

This week, even with 12 votes in favor and two abstentions, a resolution on the conflict prepared by Brazil was vetoed by the United States.

The resolution condemned Hamas’ terrorist acts and demanded the release of Israeli hostages, but called for the creation of a humanitarian corridor and called on Israel to abandon the order to evacuate Palestinians from the north of the Gaza Strip.

According to reports made to CNN According to Itamaraty sources, Brazil will support the extraordinary convening of the General Assembly, but does not intend to adopt a leading role in the process.