The Security Council today failed to adopt a text, put forward by its 10 elected members, that called for an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza and demanded the release of all hostages, on account of a negative vote cast by a permanent member.
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.
As the Security Council meeting of 18 November concluded, regional delegations, condemning the horrific aggression being wrought upon the Palestinian people by Israel, along with that country’s attacks against Lebanon, urged the 15‑nation organ to adopt a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza before famine consumes it and the dangerously escalating violence engulfs the entire Middle East.
In his bi-annual briefing today to the Security Council on the situation in Libya, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) urged Member States’ cooperation in executing arrest warrants against those suspected of war crimes committed in the town of Tarhuna, spotlighting the recent unsealing of arrest warrants for individuals linked to the Al Kaniyat militia, and Libyan authorities’ collaboration to pursue accountability.
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.
Reckoning with recent reports of the deployment of foreign troops and the authorization to use long-range weapons to strike across borders, speakers in the Security Council today discussed how best to achieve peace in Ukraine as civilians there ready themselves to face a third winter under increasingly harsh conditions.
The Security Council, meeting once again amid the 19-month brutal war raging in Sudan that has led to the world’s largest displacement crisis, rejected today a draft resolution intended to bolster measures to protect civilians and increase humanitarian aid access.
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”.
