Before the Ceasefire, Malta negotiated a ‘Humanitarian Pause’ to the war in Gaza

Full Transcript

Welcome to The Negotiators, a production of Foreign Policy and Doha Debates. Hello, I’m Femi Oke.

The Israeli war in Gaza lasted almost two years—with devastating consequences. 

 News 8: Two years ago today, Hamas militants launched the deadly October 7th attacks on Israel. 

10 News: Its own cameras filming,, as militants blew their way through what was once considered an impenetrable border.

The group killed some 1200 people, mostly civilians, and took another 251 hostages back to Gaza.

The Israeli bombardment of Gaza began that very day.

Israeli troops killed at least 67,000 Palestinians in that period, the vast majority of them civilians. Israeli bombardments and bulldozers reduced much of the territory to rubble and denial of aid created famine conditions in one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world.

On the Palestinian side, Hamas held Israeli hostages throughout the war, releasing the last of them only when the United States finally pushed through a ceasefire in October of this year.

So why did the world allow the war to go on for so long?

To try to answer that question, we’re going to look at one small negotiation on the matter that was actually successful. It took place a few weeks after the start of the war in late 2023—among members of the United Nations Security Council. The Security Council is one of the UN’s most important bodies. It’s the forum where issues of peace and security are hashed out.

But resolutions at the Security Council are tough to negotiate. The Security Council has five permanent members, including the United States, Russia and China. Any one of the permanent members can veto a Security Council Resolution—and they often do when it comes to issues related to Israel and Palestine.

The Council also includes nine rotating members. Malta was one of those nine In 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel.

Vanessa Frazier was Malta’s representative to the U.N. at the time. Over the course of several weeks, she came up with a bridging approach that focused on pausing the fighting to allow civilians to access food and other necessesities—without mentioning the word ceasefire. Her resolution didn’t end the war. But it did lead to the release of some Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

Here’s Vanessa, telling the story from the beginning.

CUE TO BREAK:

You’re listening to The Negotiators. On each episode we look at one dramatic negotiation—through the lens of one of the participants. More after the break.

MIDROLL: 

We’ve been hearing from Vanessa Frazier, who served as Malta’s representative to the U.N. when the war began in Gaza in 2023. After the U.N. Security Council made several attempts to pass a ceasefire resolution—and failed—Vanessa decided to try something different. Any resolution that contained the word ceasefire was sure to be vetoed by the United States, which wanted to let Israel continue prosecuting its war against Hamas. But what about the word “pause”? Or “humanitarian pause”? Could a small shift in language change the dynamic? 

Back to Vanessa.

ENDROLL:

Vanessa Frazier served as Malta’s permanent representative to the U.N. She’s now the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict. 

Next time on the show…Vanessa Frazier’s humanitarian pause didn’t only clear the way for aid shipments to reach Gaza. It also opened the door for a hostage exchange. 

Bergman: And I did what we always do. Sit down. Talk with colleagues. And try to come up with what we call the theory of return. The pathway, the script, the story, the shortest way we can figure out for a hostage to come home.

Plus, we’ll take you inside the negotiations for the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that ended the war in Gaza – with one of the Qatari officials who helped make it happen.

Ansari: They understand every trick in each other’s playbook. They read each other better than all of us. And therefore it’s not easy sometimes to come to a solution.

That’s next week, on The Negotiators.

FRAZIER SCRIPT:

So on October 7th, the Security Council was actually in Addis Ababa because there is an annual meeting between the UN Security Council and the African Union Peace and Security Committee. So we were actually in the airport lounge at Addis about, we think to return to New York. So we were all just together in the VIP lounge and, you know, clearly CNN was on and we were watching this news break and it was really shocking. So many people who were killed and so many hostages that were taken. And still a lot of unsure information also, right? Some people were missing and we didn’t know yet if they were dead or if they where taken, you know. So there was, the human tragedy of it was really immense. And at this point we saw Prime Minister Netanyahu make his first announcement that basically we are at war. We immediately, as Malta, I said, I’m calling an emergency meeting. And we had agreed that we would arrive in New York on Sunday and go immediately into the council. 

So Malta has a very good tradition within the UN and we believe very much in the multilateral system but also especially in the United Nations and as a small island state it is so important for us because we have an equal voice there. The size does not matter. And in the UN, if you look at the history of the United Nations and the greatest initiatives that have happened, you will notice that it has always been small states that has taken them because small states don’t spread themselves thinly. They focus on something which is very important to them. And they see it through and focus their resources on it. We believe in the common heritage of mankind. And we showed that a small country could have a loud voice. Big voice and could be effective and be impactful. When we take our positions within the United Nations, it really is based on international law, the UN Charter and fundamental principles of rule of law. So for us, it is not about Israel, Palestine, Russia, Ukraine. It’s about was a country invaded and the sovereign territory was violated. It is not it’s about who, it’s those principles. 

So when we arrived, we were all gathering the latest news. I felt so much for the Israeli population because they had lost a lot on that day. It was a huge shock on everybody. And that is the frame of mind we were in, you know? But of course, the role of the Security Council is maintenance of international peace and security. So as Malta, we believe… There has to be a diplomatic answer. I don’t want to belittle it, but it’s like when I go home and my kids are fighting, and I say, oh my gosh, what happened? And my son says, because she pinched me, so I pulled his hair and then he kicked me. And then I was like, you’re both wrong because you’ve both done bad things. We believe in diplomacy. So we have to request a ceasefire. We have to, because that is what the Charter demands of us. 

So on that day, when we arrived for the first consultation meeting, Russia had already come up with a draft resolution, very, very short, three-quarters of a page, which basically was a ceasefire resolution. Unfortunately, it didn’t pass. The US immediately said they don’t want any resolutions of the council because they wanted to see the situation on the ground and gather the information before the Security Council expresses itself. 

And so we already started with these impasse, you know, the Security Council has always found it very, very difficult to have resolutions on the Middle East, very difficult, even press statements, you know, not necessarily resolutions. And I try to explain this, you know, when I speak even to students, I try to explain that the Charter of the UN says that decisions of the Security Counsel are immediately imposed on all Member States. Immediately. They have to be obeyed. You are formulating international law and you’re formulating an obligation. So every word, every comma is to be negotiated. So it is very difficult and there are five permanent members and each have some country situation which they protect equally. That’s the way it is. You have to work around it. And we know by following the Security Council work that it is very difficult to have any products of the council on Israel and the Middle East-Palestinian question because there is one specific country that protects Israel, which is the U.S. I’m not American. I cannot get into the depth of it, but it is clear that this is really… One DNA, one country. There’s a very close relationship from the inception of Israel. Everybody feels the need to ensure the viability of the Israeli state, clearly, of course. It’s almost one country, you know, so I understand it. I think that sometimes the diplomacy is a bit short-sighted, and in fact, there were times when then the US did look back and say, yeah, that was a mistake. 

So as we sat on the council and we started working, we started seeing some resolutions being presented. And there were a number. And they were either too many abstentions, and so the resolution would not be viable, or there were vetoes. And this kept on for the month of October, basically. And there was a number of these attempts. And the problems were always two issues. It was one cam. Which was mainly China, Russia, that did not want a Hamas condemnation in the resolution. And then there was another camp, which is basically only the U.S. That did want the word ceasefire. So we couldn’t get something true because if there was only a Hamass condemnation, then of course Russia and China would be against. And if there were the word, ceasefire, then the U S would be again. And if they were both, then all of them were against. So we kept going back and forth, and then, you know, October, Brazil had the presidency of the council, and they actually had presented the best. The Brazilian Resolution, which was presented towards the end of the month, I believe it was 23rd October because they had the open debate, they presented a fantastic text which had everything in it, even the Hamas condemnation, which made the Arab group uncomfortable. But really, if we look back now, it is still the resolution that should have part. But the US vetoed it. There was Hamas’ condemnation in it. But there was the World Seas Fire. And then we could never go there again. We could never get the Hamas condemnation. It was a real error in judgment. I think it was very short-sighted, but Israel just did not want ceasefire. The word ceasefire did not want it. 

When that was vetoed because of the Sisfire language, we were all very, really devastated. And I felt at the time that maybe we need to depoliticise it, basically. It should not be politicized. It really needs to be about the suffering on the ground. I mean, I used to wake up not being able to breathe, literally thinking of those hostages in tunnels. My God, I had never been claustrophobic. I became claustrophobic. And the families of the hostages would break your heart and many of them came and met with us individually and it’s horrific. In the news it was continuous, children, babies being pulled out of the rubble in Gaza. It was horrific and we were feeling so useless and so abandoned by humanity. The Gaza Strip happens to be demographically different than any other place on earth. That it is the most densely populated strip of land. So you could drop a bomb in any other country and you will not kill as many people. And then apart from the dense population in Gaza, it also happens to me that 50% of the population are children. You don’t find that anywhere else, right? So when a tragedy happens, the vote. An apartment is blown up, you have ten children and we should have had the power to do something but we were completely impotent. 

As part of our responsibilities on the Security Council, Malta was chairing the subsidiary body on children and armed conflict. So because this was a war which was really specifically affecting children, we were already preparing for the beginning of November to have a closed briefing to the Security council working group, basically how it has affected children. 

And as Malta, we were preparing a possible presidential statement to come out from it where we try to plead for a humanitarian pause for children, to let children out, child hostages. But also we were seeing a huge humanitarian catastrophe and international law dictates that humanitarian aid must go in, medical services need to be protected, humanitarian workers were already being… And there were all these violations as well, which had to stop. And we were going to focus on children. 

The UAE decided to hold on the 7th of November sofa talks. Now sofa talks are something which is not, which is a very informal meeting of the members of the Security Council, which is held off campus normally in the residences of one of the ambassadors where the council members can speak freely and nothing is attributed and there’s no actual decision taken. It is there as human beings. We are trying to brainstorm. And when we met on this event of November, everybody said the same thing. We cannot see any more babies being pulled out of the rubber. Everybody, everybody spoke only about children, the child hostages, because they were babies. They were children, apart from the elderly, but I mean, it’s devastating, devastating. The children are very, very, very vulnerable and you ruin their entire life. And also children are the epitome of innocence. Children, Israelis and persons, they have not enlisted. They’re not wearing uniforms. They’re carrying arms. They are innocents. If there is a personification of innocence, it is the child. So I said, listen, we have this presidential statement. I am happy as chair of children armed conflict working groups. Try and present it to you as a resolution. We know what has stopped the other resolutions, if there’s the West Sea’s fire in it or if there is a condemnation of Hamas. Agree. I will try to present you with a text which will have neither of those and have only one deliverable and the deliverable will be the plight of children to try and alleviate it. Both the the Palestinian children that require medical assistance and humanitarian care and the child hostages that need to come out and they said try. This is in the sofa talk so I left in the afternoon or something at around 6 or 7. I said, oh my god, what did I do? But I will try. 

MIDPOINT GOES HERE!!!

We went back to the office, I called my team, and I told them, we’re gonna go for it. I said, but listen, keep focused. We were very clear what I want from you. Tomorrow to come up with the paragraphs and then I go through a process of elimination. So we had originally a text which was very long, a few pages, with a lot of paragraphs about international law and humanitarian law and I cut it down completely and I said okay, now this is the resolution we’re going to deliver which is focused on children and not on Hamas, and not on ceasefire. So the preamble was very short, referring to international law in general and humanitarian law in general. We don’t have to have seven paragraphs reciting different things. So I was very concise. We worked very silently, you know. For us it was not about making announcements and telling the press, we’re working on this, but that one wants this, this one wants that, nothing. I spoke to the Israelis also, I spoke to the Palestinians, I said that we had taken this decision. At the sofa talks to try and do something. It’s just going to be focused really, try to have a pause to bring aid in and to bring some relief to children. It’s not Israel good, Palestine bad, Palestine good, Israel bad, all victims we advocate for and we empathize with all victims of the war. And it is not a resolution to say who is right and who is wrong. It is a resolution to bring relief to the victims. 

So at this point in November, China was in the presidency, number one. So we were lucky because the Chinese wanted the resolution in their presidency. They wanted it. That was fantastic. We had France who were immediately, they said, Vanessa, we are going to vote yes without having seen the resolution. The UK was, you know, go for it, let us know how we can help you, but obviously cautious because they have a very special relationship with the US, and I had to basically negotiate with Russia and the US. And I treated them equally, and I think that’s what helps. I treated the same, not one over the other. You know, we are a neutral country. Our neutrality says we do not belong to any poll, and I really exercised our neutrality there. One wanted Hamas the other one did not want ceasefire and I kept telling them you’re not gonna get either. Simple because that is what we agreed. It’s not about that I just had to always remind. It is not about that. 

I’m very disciplined. I am a judoka. You know, I’ve done for over 40 years, I have practiced judo. Judo is a really disciplined sport and it really defines my character. And those who know the way judo is played, you have a square on the tatami, the judo mat, you know, which is one color. You have to play within that space and you cannot step out of it. And it really defined me. If you see me and the way I work, this is the mandate and I stick to the mandate and I kept with it. So we do not have the word ceasefire, but the language of the paragraph for the humanitarian pause is a sentence of something like 69 words just to avoid the one word. So you know, there’s a lot of creativity. 

In this period, people were individuals, even if I didn’t know a lot of the Jewish community in New York, were hearing that we’re trying to work on something to get hostages out, and people reached out to me, you know? And you would hear different things, always hearing different things. And you say the best and the worst of humanity. I am a Roman Catholic. Religious, I pray, I’ve raised my children to be religious, I believe very much in my religion. And I used to speak to my priests at my parish and say, just give them in the strength. And the church really helped me, my priests helped me a lot, the nuns who helped me a lot. He would ask me, how are things and how are you? And it meant a lot to me, a lot you know. And he gave me the right words, right words to find my faith again and stay focused. Because it’s easy to lose faith in humanity. 

For the last three days, everything was negotiated except the humanitarian pause, its duration, the definition of its duration. We had agreed finally that we could accept that it could be the humanitarian pose, was agreed by everybody. But then the problem that stopped us before we actually could go to the vote was its duration. And the US was a dingus. Obviously because of what Israel was saying then that the humanitarian pause would be of a sufficient duration of time and I said forget it because you come and tell me 57 minutes is sufficient or sufficient it’s not acceptable so I said I need to have a humanitarian pause of a sufficiently number of days and I was insisting on that terminology because days meant that I got at least 48 hours. So It comes down to that, I didn’t even want a day, I wanted days with an S, so you cannot give me less than two, you know. This is why they’re so difficult, these resolutions, and literally an S at the end of a word. 

So until the last minute, we did not know where the US and Russia were, whether there was going to be a veto or an abstention. I remember being at the Russian residence on the eve and saying, do you know what your position is going to and it can be an abstention or a veto. To me I will know tomorrow not today and I was I cried a lot even in the negotiations but I didn’t feel that there was a weakness it was a humanity. 

The U.S. Was represented by this fantastic lady Linda Thomas-Grenfield who really did make Washington understand what was going on and that it’s true that there wasn’t the Hamas condemnation which was really so important but I had delivered what was agreed. 

The last minute, Russia told us that they were given instructions to propose an amendment to the resolution, and the amendment would be to introduce ceasefire language. And then we knew that that would ruin everything because it would mean a definite veto. By the US. And then obviously the US was proposing an amendment for Hamas condemnation and we’re back to square one. I’m like, I’m not even going to present it. It was going to be like this, you know, because you’re opening up. So we managed to get agreement by the rest of the council to abstain on the Russian amendment. And this way it was not viable. So it’s like it wasn’t presented. And we could vote on the original. 

So the vote we had originally decided that we’re going to vote at 10 in the morning. And then the Chinese PR was really had a very good idea and he told me, I recommend that you move to the afternoon because on that day, there was going to be this landmark handshake between President Biden and Xi Jinping at San Francisco. And it was a Chinese presidency. There was this handshake, which there was a lot of buildup towards, right? And it was felt that the U.S. Would not want to veto at the same time under a Chinese Presidency. 

So basically everybody voted yes. Everybody supported. Everybody supported when we had three abstentions, UK, US, and Russia. But just the fact that this resolution passed, it broke an impasse, it made us understand you know what? The elected members can actually do something and the council can actually have a position on this dossier where it was always stalled. So it was not the perfect resolution, but it was very important. Eventually the resolution passed because everybody was equally unhappy and that is the secret to the success. There was no Hamas condemnation, there was no Sufya language and everybody was equally unhappy. 

When the pause actually was implemented and we started seeing hostages come out, my goodness, and aid going in and the bombing stopping and finally children getting some help, we all started feeling human, really. And then on, I remember that on, we were five women on the council, five out of 15 parent representatives are women. Switzerland, UAE, UK, and the US. And Lana of UAE on the sixth day, Israel was saying, we’re not going to go beyond seven days. They warned us and they said, look, Hamas is rearming during this time, they’re rearming. But on the 6th day in the evening, Lana of the UAE invited the women, the five women for dinner at her residence. And it was lovely and said, let us be. Women tonight. Let us be human after we’ve suffered so much from this devastation that we’ve been seeing and we’ve had a bit of reprieve and we’re seeing some light. We might be sad again tomorrow if as we’re expecting the pause will end. So let us be together and it was lovely and we just spoke as women about our families about and we were just human beings that evening, you know, and it was really lovely. There were many reasons for the success of this resolution, but also of Malt on the Council. The fact that there were five women and I was one of them, I think is one of, them I, you, know, we don’t do anything alone. There’s always people that have helped us, that have held us, have supported, and I really fenced the genuine sisterhood when I was on the council. Because you work very closely on a very, very serious issue. So the trust that is built is really immense and your blood brothers and sisters for the rest of your life with the people that you’ve shared experiences on the council with. And the women who had an especially fantastic bond and we all truly believed in the empathy that we had and that we could bring the humanity to the council. 

I hope I can read it in one breath. Security Council resolution is split up into two parts. There are the preamblia paragraphs which set up international law and previous resolutions. And then there’s the operative paragraphs, which are the actual deliverers. So this is what we want to deliver. These are the actions. And there were two actions. One was, of course, the release of hostages. And then the humanitarian pause. Is a very long paragraph because we wanted to try to avoid the word ceasefire. So it says calls for urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip for a sufficient number of… to enable consistent with the full rapid safe and unhindered humanitarian access for United Nations to facilitate… The continuous, sufficient and unhindered provision of essential goods and services important…especially children throughout the Gaza Strip, including water, electricity, fuel, food and medical supplies… and to enable urgent rescue and recovery efforts, including for missing children in damaged and destroyed buildings, and including the medical evacuation of sick people. Or injure children and their caregivers. 

And there’s not one full stop. It’s one sentence.