The Security Council today adopted a presidential statement expressing its deep concern and dismay over Israel’s recent announcement of further construction and expansion of settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as well as the “legalization” of settlement outposts, as United Nations senior officials briefed members on the latest developments on the ground.
The United Nations continues to mobilize emergency teams and relief operations in response to the earthquake that hit Türkiye and Syria. A Disaster Assessment and Coordination Team is supporting the coordination of the International Urban Search and Rescue Operations and assisting with situational and humanitarian needs analysis.
Following is the text of UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ video message to the High-Level Conference on Supporting the City of Jerusalem and its Population, in Cairo today:
The following statement was issued today by the Bureau of the General Assembly’s Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People:
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) today released its newest survey on opium cultivation. The agency estimates that poppy cultivation in Myanmar has increased by 33 per cent in the first season since the military takeover.
The international community’s immediate priority in the Occupied Palestinian Territory must be reversing the trends that marked 2022 as one of the deadliest years in recent history, the United Nations senior official working to end the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian conflict told the Security Council today as it held its regular open debate on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian Question.
Today, two inter-agency convoys, facilitated by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, delivered medicine, emergency shelter kits, blankets, sleeping bags, hygiene kits and solar lamps to 5,000 residents in two towns in the southern Khersonska oblast that had been heavily impacted by fighting.
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is in West Java, Indonesia, following the earthquake that struck Monday, and has distributed 350 customized kits to women, adolescents and people living with HIV. Deployed midwives to West Java have also established a reproductive health centre, where three babies have been born so far.
Against a background of increasing violence, shrinking civil society space and creeping annexation, speakers at a special meeting of the Palestinian Rights Committee to observe the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People stressed the need to mobilize efforts to hold Israel accountable, including through the International Court of Justice.
Warning that current trends could worsen the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and destabilize the region, the Special Coordinator for the Middle East Process, briefing the Security Council today, called on all parties to rein in violence and incitement and, together with the international community, take urgent steps towards achieving the two-State solution.
