The World Food Programme took advantage of the humanitarian pause in Gaza to provide emergency assistance to thousands and to move food stocks into position around the enclave. Humanitarian agencies report that up to half the Gazan population is without water, with medical supplies urgently needed for hospitals.

The Secretary-General is in Cairo to support efforts to stop the fighting in Gaza, and the rocket attacks in Israel. He asks all sides to create the space to assist victims and stresses that a ceasefire that returns matters to where they stood before is not enough.

The following statement was issued on Friday, 31 July, by the Spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon:

The following statement was issued on Friday, 31 July, by the Spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon:

The following statement was issued on Saturday, 1 August, by the Spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon:

The following statement was issued today by the Spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon:

Experts of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women today recognized the legislative and policy efforts of Guinea-Bissau, a least developed sub-Saharan African nation, to erase gender discrimination and improve the lot of women, but expressed concern over the country’s slow pace in removing discriminatory laws from its books, and the traditional bias that held sway in many areas.

Parties to armed conflict engaging in patterns of “killing and maiming of children and/or rape and other sexual violence against children” must also be listed in the Secretary-General’s reports on children in armed conflict, according to resolution 1882 (2009), adopted unanimously by the Security Council today.

With “a new sense of optimism and energy spreading” among the Iraqi people, as the overall level of violence in their country began to decrease and as “promising moves” towards political reconciliation got under way, the newly appointed United Nations envoy told the Security Council today that the world body’s peacekeeping Mission in Iraq should begin expanding its focus to economic recovery, social development and political stabilization.