Meeting on the heels of yet another thwarted attempt to pass a resolution calling for a ceasefire and an end to the war in Gaza, the Security Council heard a last time from Tor Wennesland, outgoing Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, who voiced deep frustration over the failure of combined efforts to broker a ceasefire, and urged Council members and Member States to guard against the “unravelling of decades” of hard-fought multilateralism.
On 8 November 2024, in pursuance of paragraph 5 of resolution 2664 (2022), a representative of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), on behalf of the Emergency Relief Coordinator, briefed the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 2653 (2022) concerning Haiti on the delivery of life-saving assistance and other activities that support essential human needs in Haiti.
“Syria remains in a profound and active state of war and division,” Najat Rochdi, Deputy Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Syria told the Security Council today, during its monthly briefing on the political and humanitarian situation in the country, as speakers echoed her calls for the protection of civilians, a de-escalation of hostilities and re-engagement in dialogue towards a long-overdue political settlement of the nearly 14 years of war and conflict.
With extreme levels of gang violence continuing to erode state authority in Haiti and no improvement in sight, a senior United Nations official urged Member States to boost their contributions to the acutely under-resourced Multinational Security Support Mission at an open briefing held by the Security Council to discuss a proposal to transform that Support mission — authorized by the 15-member body in 2023 to assist the Haitian National Police — into a UN peacekeeping operation.
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 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.
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.
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.
