The Middle East, including the Palestinian Question: Briefing on the Humanitarian Situation
This afternoon (29 August), the Security Council will hold an open briefing on “The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question”. Switzerland and the UK called for the meeting in light of the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza and following a 27 August statement by UN Under-Secretary-General for Safety and Security Gilles Michaud on the dire security situation for humanitarians and UN personnel in Gaza. The expected briefers are Acting Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Joyce Msuya and Michael Ryan, World Health Organization (WHO) Deputy Director-General and Executive Director of the Health and Emergency Programme.
The recent detection of type 2 poliovirus (polio) in Gaza and measures to halt its spread are an expected focus of today’s briefing. In a 16 August statement announcing plans for a UN polio vaccination campaign in Gaza, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for a “Polio Pause”, while also stressing that the “ultimate vaccine for polio is peace and an immediate humanitarian ceasefire”.
Council members apparently seek an update from Ryan regarding the implementation of the vaccination campaign. According to recent updates, the WHO, UNICEF, and the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) are preparing two rounds of vaccination targeting over 640,000 children under ten years of age. In a 16 August joint statement, UNICEF and the WHO requested the conflict parties to implement humanitarian pauses for seven days to allow for the two vaccination rounds to take place.
In a 29 August media briefing, WHO Representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territory Rik Peeperkorn announced that a two-round polio vaccination campaign will start on 1 September, adding that he welcomed a “preliminary commitment for area-specific humanitarian pauses during the campaign”. The first round of the campaign will take place in three staggered pauses, during which children will be vaccinated in central, northern, and southern Gaza. Answering a question from the press about which authorities had agreed to the pauses, Peeperkorn said that in Gaza “everyone is on board”, and that WHO had agreed with Israeli authorities to “what we call” humanitarian pauses, for three days in each zone. A 28 August statement by the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cited in media reports said that Israel had not agreed to “pauses in the fighting in order to administer polio vaccines”, however, but rather to “the allocation of certain places in the Gaza Strip” for unstated purposes.
At today’s meeting, Council members are likely to be interested in Msuya’s assessment of the challenges facing the UN and humanitarian personnel in providing the vaccine and, more generally, humanitarian aid in Gaza. In his 27 August statement, Michaud said that the UN is “operating at the upper-most peripheries of tolerable risk” in Gaza. Addressing mass evacuation orders issued by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), he said that, this past weekend, the IDF gave only a few hours’ notice to move over 200 UN personnel out of the key humanitarian hub of Deir al Balah, adding that the “timing could hardly be worse” given the imminent start of the polio vaccination campaign. The UN and humanitarian agencies have repeatedly warned about the devastating effects of successive large-scale evacuation orders on Palestinians in Gaza and their disruptive impact on aid operations. As at 22 August, Israeli forces had issued 12 evacuation orders during this month alone, one every two days on average.
The dire security situation for humanitarian personnel in Gaza is another expected focus of today’s briefing. In remarks to the press on 28 August, Spokesperson for the Secretary-General Stéphane Dujarric reported that, on the previous day, “a clearly marked UN humanitarian vehicle—part of a convoy that had been fully coordinated with the IDF—was struck 10 times by IDF gunfire—including with bullets targeting front windows” near Wadi Gaza. Later during the day, the vehicle was identified as belonging to the World Food Programme (WFP). In a 28 August press release, the organisation said that, following the incident, it would pause the movement of its staff in Gaza until further notice.
There have been previous incidents of humanitarian personnel coming under fire while working in Gaza, with Human Rights Watch reporting that, as at 14 May, Israeli forces had “carried out at least eight strikes on aid workers’ convoys and premises in Gaza since October 2023, even though aid groups had provided their coordinates to the Israeli authorities to ensure their protection”.
Participants in today’s meeting are likely to express concern at the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and reiterate their long-standing calls for a ceasefire, for the release of all hostages, and for safe and unhindered humanitarian access. During a 22 August Security Council meeting on “The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question”, several Council members expressed support for the UN polio vaccination campaign. Slovenia noted that successful vaccination campaigns would also require sufficient fuel, functional telecommunication networks, and cash, adding that a pause should be used to “flood Gaza with humanitarian aid” and carry out needed repairs to health, water, and sanitation systems. Algeria said that it “cannot envision any vaccination campaign under continuous Israeli bombardment”, before stressing the need for “a real cessation of hostilities to ensure the success” of the campaign. While expressing support for the Secretary-General’s call for a “Polio Pause”, Malta stressed that the UN “cannot work to save lives through vaccines only to have them destroyed again by bombs and bullets”. These and other Council members may convey similar messages today.
Members are likely to be interested in hearing the briefers’ suggestions about which measures the Council could take to facilitate the vaccination campaign and the provision of humanitarian aid at scale. At the 22 August Council meeting, Louisa Baxter, Operations Lead at Save the Children’s Emergency Health Unit in Gaza, said that “two sustained cessations of hostilities, no less than one week for each phase, must commence immediately” in order to respond effectively to the polio outbreak, with compliance with the cessations of hostilities to be monitored by the Security Council. Baxter noted, however, that the “only way to comprehensively address” the multitude of needs in Gaza is through a ceasefire, adding that if the conflict parties cannot agree and implement a ceasefire, then it falls on the Security Council and its members to “demand and enforce one, including by adopting measures to halt the transfer of weapons to the government of Israel and Palestinian armed groups”.
At today’s meeting, members are likely to condemn attacks on humanitarian agencies and their personnel and call for accountability. Participants are expected to demand that the parties to the conflict comply with their obligations under international humanitarian law (IHL) and do everything in their power to keep humanitarian personnel safe. Several members might reiterate their previous calls on Israel to establish functioning deconfliction mechanisms. Some members may reference resolution 2730 on the protection of humanitarian personnel and UN and associated personnel and their premises and assets, which was adopted on 24 May. Some might also refer to the recent informal visit to Geneva by members of the Security Council, which aimed at catalysing collective political action to uphold the principles outlined in the 1949 Geneva Conventions.
Council members are also expected to address Israel’s recent large-scale military operation in several areas of the West Bank. Members may echo the Secretary-General’s 28 August statement expressing deep concern at the launch on 28 August of operations in the Jenin, Tulkarm, and Tubas governorates “involving the use of airstrikes, which resulted in casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure”. Guterres strongly condemned the loss of lives, including of children; called for “an immediate cessation of these operations”; and urged Israel to comply with IHL and to take measures to protect civilians. Human rights organisations such as Amnesty International have warned that military operations on this scale will lead to “an escalation in deadly violence, resulting in further loss of Palestinian lives”.
