General Assembly

Concluding its work for the current session, the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) approved five texts today, four of which were draft resolutions concerning Israel and Palestine, which took recorded votes.

With another two vetoes cast this week in the Security Council — one on a cessation of hostilities in Sudan and one on a Gaza ceasefire — the importance of the “veto initiative” is now “even more profound”, the General Assembly heard today.

The Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) approved five draft resolutions addressing the human rights situations in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Myanmar, Iran, Syria and the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, and forwarded them to the General Assembly for adoption.

The report of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices is a distortion of reality and promotes a particular political agenda aimed at “destroying Israel’s image as a democratic State,” that country’s delegate told the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) today, while other speakers called for a permanent end to the Israeli settler activities, in keeping with the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice.

Delegates at the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today heard Secretariat officials lay out the details behind their request for a $2.09 million appropriation to keep the Office of the Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General for the Sudan running smoothly in 2025.

Israel’s methods of war align with the characteristics of genocide, the Chair of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories told the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) today.

The Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural) approved nine draft resolutions today, including texts on trafficking in women and girls, forced marriage, extreme poverty and the moratorium on the death penalty.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said the goal of a zone free of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East is “becoming more urgent by the day,” with “regional conflicts raging and tensions reaching a boiling point”.

The General Assembly today adopted six draft resolutions underscoring the imperatives of continued cooperation between the United Nations and regional and other organizations. Delegates also raised specific concerns on matters capable of advancing or jeopardizing these partnerships.

Citing an “apocalyptic” situation in northern Gaza, delegates in the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) today reaffirmed their funding commitments and support for UNRWA’s life-saving work and urged the Israeli Knesset to stop its attempts to dismantle the Agency, as that could fuel “hopelessness and radicalization”, and lead to a humanitarian catastrophe.