Israel

The following statement was issued today by the Bureau of the General Assembly’s Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People:

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR), together with 41 international and national partners, launched today the 2023 funding appeal for over $500 million to provide life-saving assistance to more than 900,000 refugees in Sudan, the second-largest asylum country in Africa.

The following statement was issued today by the Spokesman for UN Secretary-General António Guterres:

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) today released its newest survey on opium cultivation. The agency estimates that poppy cultivation in Myanmar has increased by 33 per cent in the first season since the military takeover.

The international community’s immediate priority in the Occupied Palestinian Territory must be reversing the trends that marked 2022 as one of the deadliest years in recent history, the United Nations senior official working to end the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian conflict told the Security Council today as it held its regular open debate on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian Question.

In the Central African Republic, the United Nations peacekeeping mission there launched a countrywide campaign on 16 January to promote efforts to protect civilians and to build confidence between the internal security forces and the population.

Leaders on all sides of the Palestinian question must help lower the flames of tension and maintain the status quo of Jerusalem’s holy sites, the Organization’s senior peace official appealed during his address to the Security Council today.

On 31 December 2022, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) Maritime Task Force assisted the Lebanese Armed Forces-Navy with a search-and-rescue operation relating to a boat in distress off the northern coast, between Beirut and Tripoli.

The deepening occupation, increase in violence and absence of a political horizon have empowered extremists and are eroding hope, the Special Coordinator for the Middle East Process told the Security Council today as he called on all parties to undertake concrete steps that will change the negative trajectory on the ground.

Warning that current trends could worsen the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and destabilize the region, the Special Coordinator for the Middle East Process, briefing the Security Council today, called on all parties to rein in violence and incitement and, together with the international community, take urgent steps towards achieving the two-State solution.