State of Palestine

The High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed deep concern over death threats against Congolese rights defender and Nobel Prize Laureate Denis Mukwege, calling for a swift investigation and action to bring the perpetrators to justice.  The threats followed his condemnation of the killing of civilians in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Following explosions in Beirut on 4 August, the United Nations is requesting $565 million to help Lebanon move towards recovery and reconstruction.  Peacekeepers with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) are also donating blood and have joined the “#UN4Beirut” initiative to clean up devastated city streets.

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

In Bangladesh, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) confirmed today that a 71-year-old Rohingya man is the first refugee in the Cox’s Bazar camp to die from COVID-19 and some 30 other people have tested positive so far, yet the numbers are likely higher as testing is ramping up.

An Ebola outbreak has been identified in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s western Equateur province.  The health ministry has identified six cases, including four people who have died.  The World Health Organization has staff in Mbandaka, the main city impacted by the outbreak, to support the response.

The twenty-sixth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will now take place from 1-12 November 2021, in Glasgow.  United Nations Climate Change Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa said that if done right, recovery from the COVID-19 crisis can foster a more inclusive climate path.

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.

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

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees welcomed today Somalia’s ratification of the Kampala Convention to protect internally displaced people in Africa as a “landmark achievement for the country and the African continent”.  Somalia became the thirtieth African Union member State to ratify it since 2009.