Middle East

According to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, heavy rainfall caused flooding in multiple sites in Khan Younis and Gaza City where displaced families are staying. People’s tents and other belongings were damaged by the rains. The United Nations and its humanitarian partners have been carrying out field visits to assess the impact of the latest rains.

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.

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

The fifth session of the Conference on the Establishment of a Middle East Zone Free of Nuclear Weapons and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction concluded today at United Nations Headquarters in New York with the adoption of a report.

Following is UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ message, as delivered by Muhannad Hadi, Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and United Nations Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, to the International Conference on the Role of the International Community and Civil Society Organizations in Promoting and Respecting the Rights of the Palestinian Child, in Amman 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.

“The current conditions are among the worst we’ve seen during the entire war and are not set to improve,” Tor Wennesland, Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, warned the Security Council during a meeting on ending the war in Gaza and Lebanon and securing durable peace in the Middle East, as Member States echoed the need for a ceasefire and voiced concern over developments that jeopardize the two-State solution.

A convoy of 109 trucks with food supplies for the World Food Programme and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, originally scheduled for 17 November, was instructed by the Israel Defense Forces to depart at short notice via an unfamiliar route on 16 November from the Kerem Shalom crossing and was looted inside Gaza.

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.