A UN Security Council vote on a resolution calling for a surge in humanitarian aid and an urgent halt to the Israel-Hamas war was again delayed on Tuesday, a diplomat for a country on the panel told The Times of Israel.

The vote is now slated to take place Wednesday.

The council had scheduled a vote late Monday afternoon, but it was postponed until Tuesday to try to get the US to support the resolution or abstain.

“We’re still working through the modalities of the resolution,” US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Tuesday afternoon before the vote was delayed. “It’s important for us that the rest of the world understand what’s at stake here and what Hamas did on the 7th of October and how Israel has a right to defend itself against those threats.”

The US on December 8 vetoed a Security Council resolution backed by almost all council members and dozens of other nations demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. The 193-member General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a similar resolution on December 12 by a vote of 153-10, with 23 abstentions.

The draft resolution on the table Monday morning called for an “urgent and sustainable cessation of hostilities,” but this language was watered down in a new draft circulated early Tuesday.

It now “calls for the urgent suspension of hostilities to allow safe and unhindered humanitarian access, and for urgent steps towards a sustainable cessation of hostilities.” The United States in the past has opposed language on a cessation of hostilities.

Security Council resolutions are important because they are legally binding, but in practice, many parties choose to ignore the council’s requests for action. General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding, though they are a significant barometer of world opinion.

In its first unified action on November 15, with the US abstaining, the Security Council adopted a resolution calling for “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses” in the fighting, unhindered aid deliveries to civilians and the unconditional release of all hostages.

President Isaac Herzog said during a briefing with ambassadors that Israel is “ready for another humanitarian pause and additional humanitarian aid in order to enable the release of hostages.”

But Ambassador Lana Nusseibeh of the United Arab Emirates, the Arab representative on the 15-member council, said Tuesday a new resolution had to go “a little bit further” than the November 15 resolution.

Israel launched its war on Hamas following the terror group’s murderous onslaught on southern Israel on October 7, in which 3,000 terrorists slaughtered some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, amid acts of brutality including rapes, and took another approximately 240 people hostage, more than 100 of whom it is still holding captive.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says nearly 20,000 people in the Strip have been killed in the ensuing operation. The Gaza death toll cannot be independently verified and also includes those killed in failed Palestinian rocket launches. The IDF says it has killed over 7,000 Hamas operatives in Gaza.

Israel says it makes every effort to avoid civilian casualties. But it points to the Hamas practice of locating military infrastructure — rocket launchers, weapons stores, command centers — next to, inside and underneath residential buildings, hospitals, schools and mosques.

At a Security Council meeting Tuesday morning, UN Mideast envoy Tor Wennesland said the humanitarian response “is on the brink” and Israel’s limited responses “fall far short of what is needed to address the human catastrophe on the ground.”

UAE Deputy Ambassador Mohamed Abushahab told the council “Gazans are experiencing unprecedented levels of starvation and thirst, while doctors lack even the most basic of medical supplies to treat the wounded and the growing threat of infection.” He said the resolution aims to meet their needs and stressed that “Israel must stop blocking the entry of aid,” commercial cargo and aid workers.

The draft resolution circulated early Tuesday by the UAE expresses “deep concern at the dire and rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and its grave impact on the civilian population.”

The draft recognizes that civilians in Gaza don’t have access to sufficient food, water, sanitation, electricity, telecommunications and medical services “essential for their survival.” And it reaffirms the council’s “strong concern for the disproportionate effect that the conflict is having on the lives and well-being of children, women and other civilians in vulnerable situations.”

The proposed resolution demands that parties to the conflict — Israel and Hamas, who are not named — facilitate aid deliveries by land, sea and air throughout the Gaza Strip, including through the border crossing at Karem Shalom.

It calls for the UN to establish a mechanism for monitoring the aid deliveries. This could be problematic because it bypasses the current Israeli inspection of aid entering Gaza.

The latest draft also demands the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages and adherence to international humanitarian law, which requires the protection of civilians and the homes, schools, hospitals and other infrastructure essential for their survival.

It reiterates the Security Council’s “unwavering commitment to the vision of the two-state solution where two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace within secure and recognized borders … and in this regard stresses the importance of unifying the Gaza Strip with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority.”

Also Tuesday, US President Joe Biden said Israel was dealing with unique challenges in the war.

“[Israel] faced a burden that few… countries have to face… a military enemy that says they have one goal: the elimination, the elimination – using terror – of the entire State of Israel,” he said during a political event, according to deputy White House spokeswoman Olivia Dalton.

“Hamas has no regard — none whatsoever — for whether those students or those civilians live or die. They faced additional burdens, too: Hamas is holding a significant number of hostages, including American hostage,” he added.

Despite these “added burdens,” Biden said Israel must differentiate between Hamas and Palestinian civilians, urging it to work to minimize non-combatant deaths.

“We are talking to Israel and Arab partners about a political future for the Palestinian people and a two-state solution with Israel’s security guaranteed, where Israel enjoys peace and normal relations with Arab neighbors,” he said.

The US president also repeated his assertion that “one of the reasons Hamas moved when they did is… [because] I was working very closely with the Saudis on the formal recognition of Israel.”

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.