Israel's targeted destruction of healthcare infrastructure in Gaza threatening the long-term survival of Palestinian people as a group are war crimes and crime against humanity, while Palestinian armed groups also committed a war crime by attacking medical staff, facilities and ambulances in Israel, the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) heard today.
“The world is not powerless” in countering the threat posed by the military junta in Myanmar, an independent human rights expert told the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) today, urging States to impose sanctions on the regime and denounce its ‘fraudulent’ election to be held in 2025.
Consistent with the solidarity demonstrated over the past three decades, delegates at the General Assembly today added yet another feather of support to multilateralism’s cap regarding the lifting of the United States’ 62-year-old economic, commercial and financial sanctions against the Government and people of Cuba.
Concluding their debate on the second cluster of topics from the International Law Commission’s annual report — and beginning discussion of the third — speakers in the Sixth Committee (Legal) today covered a wide variety of issues to which international law applies while also contemplating the sources that may inform such law in an expanding legal universe.
As the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) began its consideration of international cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space, delegates underscored the fragility and mystery of that realm, calling for cooperation in preserving its peacefulness and harnessing the potential of space technologies.
The unrelenting violence in the Middle East is further diminishing the prospects for a sustainable resolution in the region, warned Tor Wennesland, Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, as he urged all efforts to de-escalate the situation towards an immediate ceasefire and, ultimately, the two-State solution, as Member States joined the Security Council during its quarterly open debate on the situation in the region and the question of Palestine.
The disarmament machinery is an essential part of the toolkit for putting good ideas into action, building consensus, bridging divisions and doing the hard work required to achieve and maintain a safer world, Australia’s delegate told the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security), which today concluded its thematic debate on disarmament machinery and opened its deliberations on outer space.
All parties must exercise maximum restraint and immediately de-escalate to break the dangerous cycle of retaliation and prevent a full-blown war in the Middle East, speakers told the Security Council today during yet another emergency meeting on the escalating crisis in the region, following Israel’s 25 October air strikes against Iran, which earlier in the month launched missile strikes against Israel.
At an emergency meeting held at the Security Council, on the heels of reported mass casualty incidents in villages in eastern Sudan, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres voiced alarm over the “utter humanitarian catastrophe” engulfing the country, underscoring the urgent need for “decisive action”, including an immediate cessation of hostilities and unfettered humanitarian access.
Continued killings based on sexual orientation or gender identity are “inadmissible” and require urgent action from Member States, a human rights expert told the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) today, as it heard from other experts on issues ranging from counter-terrorism, unilateral coercive measures and foreign debt.
