Next Week’s Meetings on “The Middle East, including the Palestinian Question”
Next week, the Security Council is expected to hold two open meetings on “The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question”. On Monday (16 September), Council members will receive a briefing from Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator (SHRC) for Gaza Sigrid Kaag on the implementation of resolution 2720. The resolution, which was adopted in December 2023 in the context of the war between Israel and Hamas, requested the Secretary-General to appoint a SHRC mandated with establishing a UN mechanism for accelerating humanitarian consignments to Gaza. The Executive Director of the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS), Jorge Moreira da Silva, is also expected to brief. (UNOPS was tasked with the operationalisation and management of the mechanism mandated by resolution 2720.) Closed consultations are scheduled to follow the open briefing.
On Thursday (19 September), members expect to hear a briefing from Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Wennesland on the implementation of resolution 2334. Adopted in 2016, this resolution demanded that Israel cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT), including East Jerusalem, and called for immediate steps to prevent violence against civilians, including acts of terror. A civil society representative is also expected to brief. Slovenia’s Minister of Foreign and European Affairs, Tanja Fajon, will chair the meeting. Closed consultations are scheduled to follow.
On Tuesday (17 September), the General Assembly is expected to resume its Tenth Emergency Special Session (ESS) on “Illegal Israeli actions in occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory”. During the ESS, UN members are expected to vote on a draft resolution tabled by the State of Palestine on the 19 July International Court of Justice (ICJ) Advisory Opinion on the “Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem”. The General Assembly requested the Advisory Opinion in December 2022.
Meeting on resolution 2720
Resolution 2720 did not establish an end date for the SHRC mandate or the humanitarian consignments mechanism. But it requested the SHRC, who began her assignment on 8 January, to provide an initial report on her work to the Council within 20 days and thereafter every 90 days until 30 September. Monday will be Kaag’s fifth briefing to the Council on the implementation of resolution 2720. It seems that Council members are currently considering an extension of the reporting requirement established in resolution 2720.
On Monday, Kaag may provide an update on the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, including the polio vaccination campaign following the detection of type 2 poliovirus (polio) in the Gaza Strip. While the UN was able to complete the first round of polio immunisations for children under 10 years of age in the Gaza Strip on 12 September, humanitarian access remains severely constrained. On 9 September, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that the number of humanitarian missions and movements within Gaza that were “denied access by the Israeli authorities has nearly doubled in August compared with July (105 vs. 53)”. The update adds that other factors affecting access include “ongoing hostilities, a lack of internal security (including looting) and attacks on aid convoys, the presence of unexploded ordnance (UXOs), the destruction of key connecting roads, and conditions at Israeli checkpoints”.
Kaag and Moreira da Silva are likely to update Council members on the operationalisation of the 2720 mechanism. The mechanism—which comprises several components including a database that allows agencies sending humanitarian aid to register consignments, verification of the humanitarian nature of the cargo, facilitation of clearance, and monitoring of cargo flow—has been operationalised for aid deliveries from Jordan, the West Bank, and Israel. The mechanism is also active for deliveries via the Cyprus maritime corridor. However, after the permanent removal of the US-built floating dock from Gaza’s shore, consignments from Cyprus have been directed to the port of Ashdod in Israel and border crossings located in the north of the Gaza Strip. While the mechanism is apparently yet to be operationalised for aid deliveries from Egypt, in August Egyptian authorities approved “data sharing and coordination with the Mechanism”, according to an 11 September update from the Office of the SHRC.
Given that Monday’s meeting will mark the last SHRC’s briefing mandated by resolution 2720, Council members and Kaag may take stock of what has been achieved under the 2720 mandate. According to the 11 September update, diplomatic efforts by the SHRC’s office “have secured access and delivery to Gaza of critical humanitarian items in the areas of health, waste management, education and WASH [water, sanitation and hygiene] supplies”. It also says that the Office has been engaging with all relevant parties regarding the opening and reopening of border crossings into Gaza, and that it is facilitating discussions on options for “sustaining the Cyprus Maritime Corridor, with considerations for establishing a direct route to Gaza”.
Several Council members are likely to express support for the mandate of the SHRC, while also noting that humanitarian access remains severely hindered and aid at scale is still not reaching Palestinians in Gaza. At Kaag’s 2 July Security Council briefing, for instance, Ecuador observed that despite the SHRC’s efforts “it has not been possible to ensure the unimpeded provision and distribution of humanitarian aid”. Other members may take a more critical position. At the July meeting, Russia said that despite Kaag’s “carefully chosen words” to describe her work, “the reality is that humanitarian access is not being ensured”, while also adding that the SHRC “cannot be blamed for this”.
On Monday, several members might reiterate their calls on Israel to establish functioning deconfliction mechanisms. In a 10 September statement, Humanitarian Coordinator for the OPT Muhannad Hadi said that a UN team in Gaza “whose movement was fully coordinated” with the Israel Defense Forces” (IDF) was stopped on 9 September by the IDF at a checkpoint in order “to hold two of the UN staff members in the convoy for further questioning”. The IDF claimed that it was acting on intelligence that “Palestinian suspects were present in the convoy”. Hadi’s statement notes that the details of the staff members were shared with the IDF in advance. It adds that the “situation escalated quickly”, with soldiers pointing their weapons at the convoy personnel, live shots being fired and tanks and bulldozers approaching and damaging UN vehicles. 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”.
Members are also likely to reiterate their long-standing calls for a ceasefire, for the release of all hostages, and for safe and unhindered humanitarian access. Some members may also stress the importance of planning for the reconstruction of Gaza.
Meeting on resolution 2334 and General Assembly draft resolution
On Thursday, Wennesland is expected to provide an oral report on the implementation of resolution 2334, covering developments since his last report of 19 June. He is likely to note that Israeli settlement activity and settler violence continued during the reporting period. According to a 6 September International Crisis Group (ICG) report, settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank “is at an all-time high”. The report notes that settlers are increasingly “acting in concert with the army or wearing army uniforms” and that “[t]hey enjoy the active support of far-right Israeli government ministers”.
Council members may seek an update from Wennesland on the situation in the West Bank following Israel’s recent large-scale military operation in the Jenin, Tulkarm, and Tubas governorates. Members may echo the 28 August statement by the spokesperson of the Secretary-General expressing deep concern at the operation which involved the use of airstrikes and resulted “in casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure”. According to an 11 September OCHA update, at least 163 Palestinian households, comprising 624 people, remained displaced following the operation, and approximately 2,400 housing units were damaged, 106 of which were rendered uninhabitable.
Wennesland and Council members are likely to condemn all violence against civilians and underscore that settlements erode the viability of a two-state solution. Several participants are expected to stress the importance of a return to a meaningful political process towards a two-state solution as the only alternative to recurring cycles of violence. Members are also likely to stress the importance of upholding the historic status quo at the holy sites in Jerusalem and refraining from inflammatory rhetoric.
At Thursday’s meeting, many participants’ statements are likely to be informed by the 19 July ICJ Advisory Opinion and by the General Assembly draft resolution tabled by the State of Palestine. The Advisory Opinion reaffirmed that Israeli settlements “and the régime associated with them, have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law”. The ICJ determined, among other things, that Israel’s policies and practices, such its maintenance and expansion of settlements, are designed to “create irreversible effects on the ground” and, as such, “amount to annexation of large parts” of the OPT. The ICJ also found that Israel’s legislation and measures in the West Bank and East Jerusalem “impose and serve to maintain a near-complete separation” between settlers and Palestinians and, as such, constitute a breach of Article 3 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), which refers to racial segregation and apartheid.
The Advisory Opinion states that Israel has an obligation to end its presence in the OPT “as rapidly as possible” and to provide “full reparation for the damage caused by its internationally wrongful acts”. Other states are under an obligation “not to recognise as legal the situation arising from the unlawful presence of Israel” in the OPT and distinguish in their dealings with Israel between the territory of Israel and the OPT.
The draft resolution currently tabled recalls the Advisory Opinion’s key findings and demands that Israel, among other things, ends its “unlawful presence” in the OPT in “no later than twelve months”, and that it immediately ceases all new settlement activity and evacuates all settlers from the OPT. The draft resolution also calls upon UN member states to comply with their international law obligations as reflected in the Advisory Opinion, including by implementing sanctions against those engaged in the maintenance of Israel’s presence in the OPT—including in relation to settler violence—and by taking steps towards ceasing the importation of products from the settlements and the provision or transfer of arms and munitions “that may be used in the Territory”.
It also calls for convening a Conference of High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention focused on measures to enforce the Convention in the OPT, and the creation of an international register of damage “caused by the internationally wrongful acts of Israel” in the OPT. The draft resolution decides to convene under the General Assembly’s auspices an international conference for the implementation of UN resolutions on the question of Palestine and the two-state solution. It further requests the Secretary-General to submit a report on the resolution’s implementation containing proposals for the establishment of “a mechanism to follow-up” on violations of Article 3 of the CERD by Israel.
