Middle East

The World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the Global Vaccine Alliance, warned today that COVID-19 is disrupting routine vaccination efforts around the world, putting about 80 million children under the age of one at risk of diseases including diphtheria, measles and polio.

Israel’s stated intention to annex parts of the occupied West Bank will deal a devastating blow to the two-State solution and close the door to fresh negotiations with the Palestinians towards peace in the Middle East, the top United Nations official for the peace process said during a videoconference meeting of the Security Council on 20 May. 

Global human development — which is the combined measure of the world’s education, health and living standards — is set to decline this year for the first time since 1990, when the concept was first developed, the United Nations Development Programme reported today, citing the COVID-19 pandemic as a determining factor.

Without mitigation efforts, COVID-19-related service disruptions could result in more than 500,000 extra deaths from tuberculosis, HIV and other AIDS-related illnesses in sub-Saharan Africa from 2020 to 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Joint United Nations Programme against HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) said today.

Following is a statement by the General Assembly Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People:

Following an initiative by Jordan, 167 Member States and Permanent Observers have issued a statement of solidarity and appreciation to the City of New York in the midst of COVID-19.  New York City, the statement says, has been the home that has welcomed and nurtured collective action against global challenges.

While Israelis and Palestinians are cooperating in unprecedented ways to combat the expanding COVID-19 pandemic, Israel must do more to safeguard the health of all people under its control, the senior United Nations official in the region told the Security Council in a 23 April videoconference meeting.

The Secretary-General launched a new report highlighting the centrality of human rights to COVID-19 response and recovery alongside recommendations, saying the pandemic is fast becoming a human rights crisis exposing deep weaknesses in public service delivery that must be addressed.

Hostilities in western Libya continue to cause civilian casualties and trigger new displacement, with heavy shelling reported in Tripoli on 12 April.  Shelling also hit residential areas in Tajoura and struck an ambulance near Misrata, killing a paramedic and marking the eighth attack on health facilities in 2020.

While Israeli and Palestinian authorities have shown exemplary cooperation in protecting their populations from the COVID-19 pandemic, there are no clear signs indicating a return to sorely needed negotiations towards a two-State solution, the Secretary-General’s Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process told the Security Council, which met via videoconference on 30 March 2020.