Middle East

In an emergency meeting on Wednesday, the United Nations General Assembly adopted an Arab-sponsored resolution calling for greater protection for Palestinians, and deploring any use of “excessive, disproportionate and indiscriminate” force by the Israeli military against Palestinian civilians, particularly in Gaza.

United Nations officials have expressed their outrage over Friday’s killing by Israeli security forces of a 21-year-old Palestinian volunteer medic who was helping the injured along the Gaza border. 

Rocket fire this week across the border between Gaza and Israel shows how close the region is “to the brink of war” a senior United Nations official warned on Wednesday, urging the international community to do more to help Israelis and Palestinians return to the negotiating table.

Gaza is on the verge of collapse and its people becoming increasingly desperate, a United Nations envoy told the Security Council on Wednesday, urging international action to avoid another war, alleviate suffering and empower more responsible government within the enclave.

 

A special session of the UN Human Rights Council has ended with a resolution by Member States to investigate weeks of violence on the Israeli border with Gaza, which has claimed the lives of more than 100 people in the enclave and left thousands wounded.

The “cycle of violence” in Gaza serves no one and it must end, the United Nations deputy chief said on Thursday, calling on everyone with a stake in Middle East peace, to exercise utmost restraint to avoid further deaths, especially the lives of children.

Describing a viable two-state solution to end the Palestine-Israel conflict as “very much in doubt”, a leading Palestinian legislator called on Wednesday for “new international engagement” to move the process forward.

Two truckloads of urgently needed medical supplies have been delivered to Gaza, where scores of Palestinians were injured during demonstrations along the border fence with Israel earlier this week.

Following reports that dozens of Palestinians have been killed, demonstrating along the border of the Gaza Strip on Monday, United Nations  Secretary-General António Guterres urged both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to show restraint. 

Highlighting the devastating impact of the humanitarian crisis and increasing violence on Gaza's children, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has called on all parties with influence on the ground to prioritize their protection.