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This week, the United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, visited shelters housing people displaced from southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut following the sharp escalation of the conflict between Israel and Hizbullah. During the site visits - organized in cooperation with the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Food Programme (WFP), among others - the displaced expressed the hope to return home and resume their normal lives.
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This week, Hennis-Plasschaert also visited a Disaster Risk Management Committee comprised of local officials, security services and humanitarians. The Committee works with UN support to meet soaring humanitarian needs, despite significant resource challenges. Throughout these engagements, the Special Coordinator voiced concern regarding the impact of the conflict on children, with thousands set to miss out on their education as schools become shelters. Meanwhile, the Special Coordinator continued to meet with a wide array of Lebanese political and security actors, while engaging with regional and international partners, as part of her efforts to reinvigorate momentum on a ceasefire and to advocate for progress in the long-stalled presidential election process.
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UNOCA staff held their annual retreat from 8-9 October in Akanda, north of Libreville. Staff discussed the implementation of the Office's mandate, which the Security Council renewed for three years on 30 August. Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) for Central Africa and Head of the United Nations Regional Office for Central Africa Abdou Abarry comprehensibly outlined his vision and priorities.
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Amid escalating hostilities in Myanmar sparked by a 2021 military coup that have plunged millions into a deepening humanitarian crisis, UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Friday urged the country’s neighbours “to leverage their influence” to bring about peace.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres congratulated the Japanese anti-nuclear weapons organization Nihon Hidankyo which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.
The UN Secretary-General on Friday condemned recent attacks against peacekeeping personnel and premises in southern Lebanon.
The number of Sudanese refugees in South Sudan has surpassed half a million, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, announced on Friday, as ongoing conflict in neighbouring Sudan continues to drive massive displacement.
Read here the latest UNSOM Quarterly Newsletter.
Thank you, Madam President,
In the eight days since the Secretary-General last briefed you on Lebanon and the Middle East, the situation in Lebanon has become even more alarming.
The exchanges of fire between Hizbullah and the Israel Defense Forces, which commenced on 8 October last year when Hizbullah fired on Israeli targets in Hizbullah’s stated support for Gaza, have intensified dramatically.
Hizbullah has stepped up its attacks on Israel, firing rockets, missiles and drones further south, including towards Haifa and Tel Aviv.
Israel responded with attacks, now across Lebanon, including in the capital Beirut, striking hundreds of Hizbullah targets – many in densely populated areas – and causing widespread destruction, displacement, and suffering.
Since the commencement of Israeli ground operations into Lebanon on 1 October, Hizbullah and the Israel Defense Forces have been engaged in intensified clashes in southern Lebanon.
The ongoing exchanges of fire have created a humanitarian emergency.
The number of dead and wounded has spiraled: over 300 people have been killed in Lebanon just in the past week. Since 8 October last year, the number of dead has reached over 2,000, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health. Hundreds of those killed were civilians, including more than 100 children.
Lebanese Armed Forces personnel have been killed, with 3 fatalities in the past week.
Israeli soldiers have also been killed, including at least 12 on Lebanese territory since 1 October.
Over 600,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon - a quarter of a million people since last Wednesday. The vast majority are women and children.
A quarter of Lebanese territory has been placed under so-called evacuation orders issued by the Israel Defense Forces, affecting more than 100 villages and neighborhoods, with the IDF giving people as little as 2 hours’ notice to vacate their homes, often in the middle of the night.
Around 250,000 people, including Lebanese and Syrians, have fled into Syria.
Tens of thousands more have departed through Beirut airport.
Lebanon’s health sector is under immense pressure. Many hospitals and centers closed following airstrikes hitting healthcare facilities and personnel.
The Flash Appeal launched last week requests USD $425 million to assist 1 million people over the next three months. I urge Member States to support this request, and I thank those of you who have already given or pledged aid.
In northern Israel, the civilian population is also enduring repeated attacks from Hizbullah and other non-state armed groups in Lebanon and the region.
Over 50 people have been killed and more than 60,000 have been displaced in Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights since last October, disrupting lives and livelihoods.
The devastating conflict in Lebanon, coupled with intensified strikes in Syria and the raging violence in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, points to a region dangerously teetering on the brink of an all-out war.
Madam President,
Our collective inability to stop the violence and stem the bloodshed is damning.
Hizbullah and other non-state armed groups must stop firing rockets and missiles into Israel.
We urge Israel to stop its bombardment of Lebanon and to withdraw its ground forces.
The parties must seize the diplomatic options put on the table before them, not the weapons by their side.
The United Nations welcomes the continued efforts of Member States in this regard.
As the Secretary-General has warned, there is still time, but it is quickly running out. We must give diplomacy a chance. NOW.
The Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, is engaging with all actors to stress the need for immediate de-escalation and a diplomatic solution.
The parties must commit to a return to a cessation of hostilities, and the full implementation of Security Council resolutions 1559 (2004) and 1701 (2006).
The Lebanese state must have control over all weapons within its territory. We see what happens when it does not.
The political impasse for the election of a president is approaching two years. At this time of crisis, I urge Lebanon’s political leaders to take resolute steps towards addressing the vacuum.
The state sovereignty and territorial integrity of both Lebanon and Israel must be respected.
Obligations under international law, including international humanitarian law, must be upheld. In this regard:
Distinction must be made between civilians and fighters, and between civilian infrastructure and military objectives;
Civilians, and civilian infrastructure, must not be targeted;
Indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks must be avoided;
Humanitarian personnel, medical workers, and journalists also must not be targeted.
UN personnel, including the brave peacekeepers along the Blue Line and members of the UN family working under such dangerous conditions across Lebanon, must be protected.be protected.
We need to invest every effort to reverse this cycle of violence and bring Lebanon and Israel - and the region - back from the brink of catastrophe. Thank you, Madam President.
In Lebanon, health workers and medical facilities have continued to be hit and killed by ongoing Israeli bombardment, a week since Israel sent troops and armoured vehicles into the south of the country and issued evacuation orders, UN humanitarians said on Thursday.
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) fired on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon early Thursday morning, according to UNIFIL, the mission operating along the Security Council-mandated “Blue Line” of separation between the two countries which they patrol.
As the crisis in the Middle East grinds on, we covered the latest updates from the field and at UN Headquarters as Israel Defense Forces (IDF) attacked UN peacekeepers from the UNIFIL mission in Lebanon. At UN Headquarters in New York, events included the Security Council discussing the situation in an emergency session and the UN spokesperson's daily news briefing, which included a UN official who described his recent visit to Gaza, which he said has suffered unparalleled devastation. UN News app users can follow here.
The prospect of all-out war in Lebanon appeared undiminished on Wednesday as the head of the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, said that there was “no end to hell” in northern Gaza, where lifesaving relief has shut down.
As turmoil roils the Middle East, senior UN officials provided humanitarian updates on the impact of continued fighting in Lebanon and Gaza, while many ambassadors in the Security Council offered strong support for the "indispensable" role of the Palestine refugee agency, UNRWA, which has come under increasing attack in the Israeli parliament. UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said attempts to "dismantle" the agency would compromise humanitarian work and human rights worldwide. Full coverage for app users, here.
Two bills before the Israeli parliament could put a halt to the lifesaving operations of UN Palestine relief agency, UNRWA, which has been indispensable and irreplaceable “more than ever” over the past year of war in Gaza, Secretary-General António Guterres said on Tuesday.
The situation in Africa’s Great Lakes Region, in particular the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), has remained “alarming” amid ongoing violence in the restive country’s east, said the UN Special Envoy to the Region in a briefing to the Security Council on Tuesday.
The UN peacekeeping mission UNIFIL has been operating along the “Blue Line” which separates Lebanon and Israel since the 1970s, and its mandate was just renewed for another year by the UN Security Council. But what is UNIFIL and what is it doing amid the escalating conflict between Hezbollah and Israel Defense Forces (IDF)?
UN humanitarians in Lebanon on Tuesday described the massive challenge of trying to reach some 1.2 million people who have fled heavy Israeli bombardment and evacuation orders, driven by the fear that what happened in Gaza may befall them, too.
A Palestinian man living in a refugee camp in northern Gaza has talked of the ‘indescribable’ pain he has experienced over the past year as the conflict in the beleaguered enclave continues.
Secretary-General's press encounter - on the situation in the Middle East
New York, 8 October 2024
The nightmare in Gaza is now entering an atrocious, abominable second year.
This has been a year of crises. Humanitarian crisis. Political crisis....
The UN aid coordination office, OCHA, voiced deep concern on Monday over the siege of El Fasher in Sudan’s North Darfur, where continued clashes are putting the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians in the region at risk.
Senior officials from across the UN system underscored the need for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and across the wider region, in statements marking one year since the brutal 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attacks on Israel.
UN humanitarians have warned that conditions in northern Gaza are deteriorating rapidly, with over 400,000 people facing Israeli evacuation orders amid ongoing airstrikes and ground operations.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees called on Sunday for greater international support to stem the “humanitarian catastrophe” now engulfing Lebanon following a massive escalation in Israeli airstrikes and a “limited” ground invasion there targeting Hezbollah militants.
In a message to mark one year since the Hamas-led terror attack during which more than 1,250 Israelis and foreign nationals were brutally killed on 7 October, the UN Secretary-General has called on the international community to loudly condemn those “abhorrent acts” which have triggered a shocking wave of violence across the region.
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How does a Security Council resolution get adopted?
An attack by a notorious gang in the town of Pont Sondé, Haiti, left at least 70 people dead on Thursday, after gunmen armed with automatic rifles opened fire, a spokesperson for the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said on Friday.
The UN chief has strongly condemned the killing of several Palestinians, including women and children, who died when a residential building in Tulkarem camp in the West Bank was hit by Israeli airstrikes on Thursday night.
As Lebanon suffered another night of heavy Israeli bombing, UN humanitarians and partners described how people desperate to flee the violence found the country’s main border crossing into Syria cut by a new dawn strike, forcing them to skirt “a huge crater” and rubble on foot, to reach the other side.
The UN-designated human rights expert on Sudan has called for the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), along with their allied militias, to take immediate steps to protect civilians in greater Khartoum amid escalating violence and alarming reports of summary executions.
People in Lebanon uprooted by Israeli airstrikes including in central Beirut have described being forced to flee “total destruction”, amid fresh reports of Hezbollah projectile attacks into Israel and close-quarter clashes along the UN-patrolled line of separation between the two countries.
Peacekeepers positioned along the “Blue Line” of separation between Israel and Lebanon remain committed to their mandate, and will remain in place until conditions allow, the UN’s peacekeeping chief said on Thursday.
Armed conflict puts children at an increased risk of grave violations while their risk of being trafficked similarly increases, including in transitional periods, a new UN study has revealed.
Russian shelling has hit another apartment block in Ukraine’s second city of Kharkiv, UN aid teams said on Thursday.
