The UN Security Council met intensively through Wednesday morning in New York on the Middle East crisis. It was the first open meeting since the 15-member body passed a resolution in mid-November and the first featuring foreign ministers from across the region and beyond.
The look on people’s faces in Gaza reveals “the trauma, the stress, as if sorrow and sadness have taken root here in Gaza”, according to James Elder, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson who has joined the aid effort in the besieged enclave.
The heads of three UN agencies on Wednesday highlighted the disproportionate suffering faced by women and girls amidst the ongoing crisis in Gaza, urging a collective response to protect the most vulnerable and a commitment to lasting peace for the women and girls caught in the crossfire.
A “tragic…entirely avoidable surge” in child deaths is expected in Gaza where some 160 youngsters are already being killed every day, UN humanitarians warned on Tuesday, after six weeks of aerial bombardment by Israeli forces in response to the 7 October Hamas terror attacks on southern Israel that claimed 1,200 lives and some 240 hostages.
The thousands of injuries sustained by civilians across Gaza combined with a burgeoning public health crisis is a ‘recipe for epidemics’, the World Health Organization’s emergency response director said on Monday.
Fierce hostilities continue across Gaza from the air, sea, and on the ground, the UN’s top humanitarian official told Member States on Friday, reporting that 41,000 houses have now been destroyed or severely damaged.
The UN’s top emergency relief official unveiled a 10-point plan “to rein in the carnage” in Gaza on Wednesday which focuses on a major expansion of aid into into the wartorn enclave, along with a new call for humanitarian ceasefires and the release of hostages taken during Hamas’s 7 October terror attacks on Israel.
From the hustle and bustle of New York City to the edge of the Karura Forest in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, offices across the global UN system paid tribute on Monday to the 101 staff killed so far during the war raging in Gaza – the largest loss during a conflict in the Organization’s 78-year history.
The UN Security Council met again on Friday to discuss the ongoing Israel-Palestine crisis as negotiations continue behind the scenes within the 15 member body to reach some consensus position over the war raging in Gaza. Ambassadors heard searing testimony from the UN health agency chief who said the entire health system of the enclave was now "on its knees". Catch up with the full meeting via UN Web TV here.
Any plans for short-term pauses in the fighting in Gaza must be carried out in coordination with the UN and following agreement by all sides, the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General said on Thursday during his regular press briefing from New York.
