Middle East

The UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, in a statement issued today, condemned the firing yesterday of a rocket from Gaza towards Israel. This is the third such incident in the past 30 days after a period of almost four months of quiet.  Such provocations seek only to undermine peace, he said.

The Middle East continued to be plagued by extremism, bloodshed and displacement that spread intolerance, violence and religious radicalism far beyond the region, the Secretary-General’s Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process told the Security Council today, urging both the Israeli and Palestinian sides to contemplate carefully the future they envisioned for their respective peoples.

Following is UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ message, delivered by Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti, Chef de Cabinet, to the opening of the 2017 session of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, in New York today:

David Shearer, Head of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), sounded the alarm over the lack of information about 20,000 internally displaced people on the west bank of the Nile in the country’s north.  The Mission believes they fled Wau Shilluk to Kodok, as fighting between Government and opposition forces has expanded and shows no signs of abating.

The Secretary-General deeply regrets the adoption of the so-called “Regularisation bill” on 6 February.  This bill will have far-reaching legal consequences for Israel.  The Secretary-General insists on the need to avoid actions that would derail the two-State solution.

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

Today is the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, and in his message on the occasion, the Secretary-General stressed that the practice denies women and girls their dignity, endangers their health and causes needless pain and suffering, with consequences that last a lifetime.

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

The Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process told the Security Council today that despite the relative tranquillity of the Israel-Palestinian conflict compared to other regional crises, the spectre of violence is always near.  He said that all stakeholders must avoid any unilateral action that would prejudge a negotiated final status solution.

Divisive positions among Israelis and Palestinians following last month’s adoption of resolution 2334 (2016) risked destroying the prospects for peace, the Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process told the Security Council today, stressing that both sides must create the conditions for launching direct final-status negotiations.