HIGHLIGHTS OF THE U.N. SYSTEM
FRIDAY, 22 DECEMBER 2023
SECRETARY-GENERAL/ PRESS CONFERENCE OPENING REMARKS
Over the last weeks and days, there has been no significant change in the way the war has been unfolding in Gaza.There is no effective protection of civilians.
Intense Israeli bombardment and ground operations continue. More than 20,000 Palestinians have reportedly been killed, the vast majority women and children.
Meanwhile, Hamas and other Palestinian factions continue to fire rockets from Gaza into Israel.
Some 1.9 million people – 85 percent of Gaza’s population – have been forced from their homes. The health system is on its knees. Hospitals in the south are dealing with at least three times their capacity. In the north, they are barely operational.
One colleague described the deathly silence of a hospital with no medication or treatment for its sick and injured patients.
According to the World Food Programme, widespread famine looms. More than half a million people – a quarter of the population – are facing what experts classify as catastrophic levels of hunger. Four out of five of the hungriest people anywhere in the world are in Gaza. And clean water is at a trickle.
UNICEF found that displaced children in the south have access to just ten percent of the water they need.
In these desperate conditions, it is little wonder that many people cannot wait for humanitarian distributions and are grabbing whatever they can from aid trucks.
As I warned, public order is at risk of breaking down.
Humanitarian veterans who have served in war zones and disasters around the world – people who have seen everything – tell me they have seen nothing like what they see today in Gaza.
Israel began its military operation in response to the horrific terror attacks launched by Hamas on 7 October. Nothing can possibly justify those attacks, or the brutal abduction of some 250 hostages. I repeat my call for all remaining hostages to be released immediately and unconditionally. And nothing can justify the continued firing of rockets from Gaza at civilian targets in Israel, or the use of civilians as human shields.
But at the same time, these violations of international humanitarian law can never justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people, and they do not free Israel from its own legal obligations under International Law.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Press,
Many people are measuring the effectiveness of the humanitarian operation in Gaza based on the number of trucks from the Egyptian Red Crescent, the UN and our partners that are allowed to unload aid across the border.
This is a mistake.
The real problem is that the way Israel is conducting this offensive is creating massive obstacles to the distribution of humanitarian aid inside Gaza.
An effective aid operation in Gaza requires security; staff who can work in safety; logistical capacity; and the resumption of commercial activity.
These four elements do not exist.
First, security.
We are providing aid in a war zone.
The intense Israeli bombardment and active combat in densely populated urban areas throughout Gaza threaten the lives of civilians and humanitarian aid workers alike.
We waited 71 days for Israel finally to allow aid to enter Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing.
The crossing was then hit while aid trucks were in the area.
Second, the humanitarian operation requires staff who can live and work in safety.
136 of our colleagues in Gaza have been killed in 75 days – something we have never seen in the history of the United Nations.
Nowhere is safe in Gaza.
I honour the women and men who have made the ultimate sacrifice, and I pay tribute to the thousands of humanitarian aid workers who are risking their health and lives in Gaza, even as I speak.
Most of our staff have been forced from their homes. All of them spend hours each day simply struggling to survive and support their families.
It is a miracle that they have been able to continue working under these conditions.
And yet, those same colleagues are expanding humanitarian operations in southern Gaza to support people living there, while trying to assist the flood of displaced people who arrived from the north – with nothing.
They are currently providing aid in Rafah, western Khan Younis, Deir El Balah and Nuseirat in the south, and doing their best to reach the north despite huge challenges, namely security.
In these appalling conditions, they can only meet a fraction of the needs.
Third, logistics.
Every truck that arrives at Kerem Shalom and Rafah must be unloaded, and its cargo re-loaded for distribution across Gaza. We ourselves have a limited and insufficient number of trucks available for this.
Many of our vehicles and trucks were destroyed or left behind following our forced, hurried evacuation from the north, but the Israeli authorities have not allowed any additional trucks to operate in Gaza. This is massively hampering the aid operation.
Delivering in the north is extremely dangerous due to active conflict, unexploded ordnance, and heavily damaged roads.
Everywhere, frequent communications blackouts make it virtually impossible to coordinate the distribution of aid, and to let people know how to access it.
Fourth and finally, the resumption of commercial activities is essential.
Shelves are empty; wallets are empty; stomachs are empty. Just one bakery is operating in the whole of Gaza.
I urge the Israeli authorities to lift restrictions on commercial activity immediately.
We are ready to scale up our cash grant support to vulnerable families – the most effective form of humanitarian aid. But in Gaza, there is very little to buy.
Ladies and gentlemen of the media,
In the circumstances I have just described, a humanitarian ceasefire is the only way to begin to meet the desperate needs of people in Gaza and end their ongoing nightmare.
I hope that today’s Security Council Resolution may help this finally to happen but much more is needed immediately.
Looking at the longer-term, I am extremely disappointed by comments from senior Israeli officials that put the two-state solution into question.
As difficult as it might appear today, the two-state solution, in line with UN resolutions, international law and previous agreements, is the only path to sustainable peace.
Any suggestion otherwise denies human rights, dignity and hope to the Palestinian people, fueling rage that reverberates far beyond Gaza.
It also denies a safe future for Israel.
The spillover is already happening.
The occupied West Bank is at boiling point.
Daily exchanges of fire across the Blue Line between Lebanon and Israel pose a grave risk to regional stability.
Attacks and threats to shipping on the Red Sea by the Houthis in Yemen are impacting shipping with the potential to affect global supply chains.
Beyond the immediate region, the conflict is polarizing communities, feeding hate speech and fueling extremism.
All this poses a significant and growing threat to global peace and security.
As the conflict intensifies and the horror grows, we will continue to do our part.
We will not give up.
But at the same time, it is imperative that the international community speak with one voice: for peace, for the protection of civilians, for an end to suffering, and for a commitment to the two-state solution – backed with action.
GAZA
The Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths, said yesterday in a social media post that the announcement about the risk of famine in Gaza by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) global partnership is sobering but not surprising. “We have been warning for weeks that, with such deprivation and destruction, each day that goes by will only bring more hunger, disease and despair to the people of Gaza,” he said.
Bombardment, ground operations and the besiegement of the entire population, coupled with restricted humanitarian access, have resulted in catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity, intensifying the risk of famine each day, according to the IPC.
The UN Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says that last night, the main telecommunication provider in Gaza announced that its services were gradually returning to southern and central Gaza.
The United Nations is working with all involved to ensure that the flow of goods into Gaza is sufficient, predictable, swiftly delivered and based on what people need most. While the current scale of supplies entering Gaza falls short of what is required, what is equally crucial is reestablishing conditions within Gaza that allow for meaningful, efficient and large-scale humanitarian operations. Currently, intense fighting, the lack of electricity, limited fuel and disrupted telecommunications severely restrict access to loading points and trucks, as well as the ability to deliver, prioritize, plan and coordinate critical operations – with civilians bearing the brunt.
FINANCING OF AFRICAN UNION-LED PEACE OPERATIONS
The Secretary-General welcomes the Security Council’s unanimous adoption, on 21 December 2023, of Resolution 2719 (2023) on the financing of African Union-led AV Support Operations.
Since the start of his mandate, the Secretary-General has repeatedly called for a new generation of AV Support Operations led by African partners, with guaranteed funding including through UN assessed contributions, to respond to the peace and security challenges on the continent. This is also one of the key recommendations of his recent policy brief on A New Agenda for AV. This ground-breaking resolution by the Council will help address a longstanding and critical gap in the international peace and security architecture and bolster the international community’s efforts to tackle peace and security challenges on the continent.
The Secretary-General is committed to further strengthen the strategic partnership with the African Union, including through the implementation of this milestone resolution. The United Nations will continue its collaborative efforts with the African Union towards political solutions to address conflicts on the continent and enhance AU-UN consultative decision-making process as outlined in the resolution.
SECURITY COUNCIL
This morning, the Director and Deputy to the High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Adedeji Ebo, briefed Security Council members. He noted that after a gap of more than two and a half years, the twenty-fifth round of consultations between the Declaration Assessment Team (DAT) and the Syrian National Authority took place from 30 October to 5 November 2023.
Mr. Ebounderscored that the United Nations will continue to support all efforts to uphold the norm against chemical weapons, and to relegate these dreadful weapons to history.
CZECHIA
In a statement issued yesterday evening, the Secretary-Generalsaid that he was shocked and saddenedbyyesterday’s mass shooting at the Charles University in Prague, Czechia. He expressed his deepest condolences to the families of the victims and wished those injured a speedy and full recovery.
The Secretary-General reiterated his full solidarity with the people and Government of Czechia.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
The Secretary-General's Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence published last night its interim report entitled Governing AI for Humanity. The report is available on the AI Advisory Body website. The interim report calls for anchoring AIin international law,human rights and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
It also puts forward a proposal to strengthen international governance of AI by carrying out critical functions such as horizon scanning for risks and supporting international collaboration on data, and computing capacity and talent. It also includes recommendations to enhance accountability and ensure an equitable voice for all countries.The Body will now explore options for institutionalizing these functions, building on consultations with diverse stakeholders worldwide.
There will be a presentation of the interim report to Member States on 12 January 2024. At that stage further details will be available on how governments can submit their feedback on the interim report to the AI Advisory Body. The final report will be published next summer ahead of the Summit of the Future.
All stakeholders can submit their feedback via the open consultation platform available on the website until the end of March 2024.
WEST AND CENTRAL AFRICA
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) today said that 46.7 million children face another year of humanitarian need in West and Central Africa - mainly due to ongoing conflict and insecurity, including in the central Sahel region and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as the massive displacement of women and children into Chad from Sudan.
UNICEF in the region is urgently appealing for $1.89 billion in its 2024 Humanitarian Action for Children appeal, which would help reach an estimated 24.1 million children, up from 23.5 million in 2023.
More than a third of the funding requirement in 2024 is to address malnutrition in the region, where the prevalence of wasting in children under five years remains high. The Sahel countries are the most affected with several areas of Burkina Faso, Mali and north-west Nigeria showing emergency levels of child wasting that exceed 15 per cent.
Lack of funding remains a major hindrance to humanitarian response, with UNICEF’s two most underfunded appeals globally coming from the region. The 2023 appeal for the humanitarian needs in Burkina Faso ($227 million) was only 11 per cent funded, while the $862 million 2023 appeal for the Democratic Republic of the Congo was only 13 per cent funded.
SOUTH SUDAN
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is reporting a surge in new arrivals at South Sudan’s border with Sudan. This comes as the war in Sudan spreads to the south and east of the country, amid fierce fighting in Wad Medani over the past week. In recent days, the number of people arriving in South Sudan via the Joda crossing point has almost tripled – with a daily average of 1,000 people crossing last week, compared to nearly 3,000 yesterday.
Meanwhile, more than 6,000 people are reportedly still waiting on the Sudanese side of the border to cross, with thousands more people expected to join that queue in the coming days.
The UN and its humanitarian partners continue to scale up support for new arrivals in South Sudan at the Renk Transit Centre, where more than 23,000 people are being hosted despite crowded conditions. Across the country, some 4.6 million people have received some form of humanitarian assistance and protection services this year, as of September.
This is despite funding shortfalls, as well as ongoing violence and threats against humanitarian personnel and assets. For 2024, the humanitarian community in South Sudan is appealing for $1.8 billion to assist 6 million people. To do so, timely and sufficient funding for the response will be critical.
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
Today, the Under-Secretary-General for AV Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, concluded his three-day visit to the Central African Republic, during which he met with national authorities, including the Head of State, the President of the National Assembly, the Prime Minister and other government officials. Earlier today, he also engaged with students at the University of Bangui on the work of peacekeeping missions and the role that MINUSCA plays in the country.
At a press conference, Mr. Lacroix stressed the excellent collaboration between the United Nations and the Central African authorities. He noted the progress in the country related to security and the peace process, but also raised some challenges related to insecurity. He noted the Mission’s continuous efforts to address insecurity issues in a proactive and robust posture and through joint operations with CAR security and defense forces.
He also underscored the importance of the preparation and holding of free, fair and credible elections to strengthen democracy at the local level in CAR and reiterated the Mission’s willingness to assist the Government in this regard.
SENIOR PERSONNEL APPOINTMENT
The Secretary-General today announced the appointment of James Eugene McGoldrick of Ireland as his new Ad Interim Deputy Special Coordinator and Resident Coordinator, Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East AV Process (UNSCO).Mr. McGoldrick will also serve as Humanitarian Coordinator ad interim.He succeeds Lynn Hastings of Canada, to whom the Secretary-General is grateful for her dedication and service.
Mr. McGoldrick brings extensive experience in humanitarian affairs, international cooperation, economic development and political affairs.He previously served as the Deputy Special Coordinator, Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator in UNSCO, between 2018 and 2020. From 2015 to 2018, Mr. McGoldrick was the United Nations Resident Coordinator, Humanitarian Coordinator and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative in Yemen. He also worked with the International Red Cross movement and non-governmental organizations in a number of countries in Africa.
Mr. McGoldrick holds a master’s degree in political science and a bachelor’s degree in social sciences from Glasgow Caledonian University.He also attained qualifications in disaster management, preventive diplomacy and mediation.
