The Middle East, including the Palestinian Question: Briefing
Tomorrow afternoon (4 September), the Security Council is expected to hold a briefing on “The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question”. Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo and Director of the Operations and Advocacy Division at the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Edem Wosornu are expected to brief.
The briefing was scheduled after two separate meeting requests: one made by Israel (supported by France, the UK, and the US) after the recovery on 31 August of bodies of six hostages killed in Gaza and another made by Algeria to discuss developments in Gaza and the West Bank. In a 1 September letter to the Security Council and Secretary-General António Guterres, Israel called on the Council to meet urgently “to condemn Hamas in the strongest possible terms and to address the dire situation of the 101 hostages still held in captivity in Gaza”. Slovenia, the Council’s president in September, has decided to hold one meeting to accommodate these two requests.
Tomorrow’s briefing takes place against the backdrop of ongoing indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas facilitated by Egypt, Qatar, and the US on a deal that would entail a ceasefire and the release of the hostages. An agreement appears to remain elusive, however. A point of contention appears to be the deployment of Israeli forces in the context of a deal: Hamas is demanding that Israeli forces leave Gaza as part of a ceasefire deal that includes the release of hostages, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has argued that Israel needs to maintain troops in the “Philadelphi corridor”, a narrow strip of land along Gaza’s border with Egypt that includes the Rafah crossing, maintaining that Hamas has been using the corridor to facilitate its operations.
Several members are likely to reiterate their calls for a ceasefire and the release of hostages, while condemning violations of international law by the parties to the conflict. They are expected to reiterate their criticism of Israel’s military campaign for the devastating toll it has taken on civilians in Gaza. Members are also likely to condemn the killing in Gaza of the six Israeli hostages whose ages ranged from 23 to 40, including one dual Israeli-American citizen. Regarding the hostages, Hamas captors are reportedly operating under a new set of instructions that the group issued following Israel’s rescue of four hostages in June in the Nuseirat refugee camp in an operation that also led to the deaths of many Palestinians. While the precise nature of these rules is not clear, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said that the hostages were “brutally murdered…a short while before we reached them”.
Members may repeat their demand that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) be granted access to all those held captive in connection with the war. A 31 July report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) noted that Palestinian armed groups have prevented the ICRC from visiting the hostages. It added that released Israeli hostages had “described being beaten while being taken into Gaza, or seeing other hostages being beaten while in captivity”. They also reported “distressing conditions in which they were held, including a lack of food, water and poor sanitary conditions, as well as the specific situation of captivity, notably extremely limited movement and a lack of fresh air and sunlight”.
Some members may also express concern about the situation of Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons without charge. In this regard, the July OHCHR report observed that many Palestinians had been detained since the start of the war in October 2023 “without charges or trial and in conditions that raise concerns of the abuse of administrative detention, along with reports of torture and other ill-treatment and violation of due process”. The report adds that this “raises serious concerns regarding the arbitrariness and punitive nature of such arrests and detention”.
During a press briefing today (3 September) on the Council’s September programme of work, Ambassador Samuel Žbogar (Slovenia) described the rising anxiousness in the Council at the lack of progress in fulfilling resolution 2735 of 10 June. That resolution welcomed a ceasefire proposal announced by the US on 31 May calling for a full and complete ceasefire, the release of all hostages, and the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, among other elements. Žbogar’s remarks were consistent with those of members who lamented the lack of implementation of resolution 2735 during a 22 August Council meeting on “The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question”.
The humanitarian situation in Gaza is an expected key focus of tomorrow’s briefing. Wosornu and Council members may reiterate calls for unfettered humanitarian access in the Gaza strip. They may also highlight the need to promote the safety of humanitarian workers in Gaza, a concern recently highlighted after a World Food Programme (WFP) vehicle came under fire on 28 August, which Israel said was the result of a communications error. Earlier this year, OCHA reported that 254 aid workers had been killed in the conflict through the end of April.
Members are likely to be interested in an update on the polio vaccination campaign in the Gaza Strip, following the recent detection of type 2 poliovirus (polio) in Gaza. According to recent updates, the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, and the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) are expected to administer two rounds of vaccination targeting over 640,000 children under ten years of age. The campaign commenced on 1 September, with almost 87,000 children in central Gaza receiving the first dose of the vaccination during area-specific humanitarian pauses, according to a 2 September OCHA update. Briefing the Council on 29 August, WHO Deputy Director-General and Executive Director of the Health Emergency Programme Michael Ryan said that the outbreak of polio is occurring in the context of a “public health catastrophe”, in which only 44 percent of primary health care facilities continue to operate and evacuation orders hinder efforts to provide medical care.
While members are likely to welcome the launch of the campaign, some may underscore that children should not be required to live under such conditions. Some may also emphasise that the best way to prevent diseases from spreading in Gaza is for the conflict to end and the health care system to be reconstructed. Members may also echo concerns expressed by Ryan about the negative effects of evacuation orders on the effective delivery of medical assistance.
At tomorrow’s meeting, Council members may discuss Israel’s recent large-scale military operation in several areas of the West Bank. Members may echo the Secretary-General’s 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 international humanitarian law and to take measures to protect civilians. In discussing the volatile situation in the West Bank, some Council members may refer to the 19 July Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which reaffirmed, among other things, that “Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the régime associated with them, have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law”.
