Source: United Nations (video statements)
Twenty-year old Yvonne Bejjani, who grew up in Lebanon, describes how that experience helped shaped her convictions and led her to attend the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development as an official delegate.
Source: United Nations (video statements)
International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica.
The observance marks the 30-year anniversary of the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica.
Co-organized by the United Nations Department of Global Communications, the Office of the Special Advisor for the Prevention of Genocide and the Permanent Mission of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the United Nations.
Source: United Nations (video statements)
Noon Briefing by Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesperson for the Secretary-General.
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Highlights:
Cyprus
Occupied Palestinian Territory
Yemen
Haiti
South Sudan
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CYPRUS
Following the informal meeting on Cyprus in a broader format that was held in Geneva on 17-18 March of this year, the Secretary-General will convene on 16 and 17 July, here at UN Headquarters, the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leaders, as well as representatives of the guarantor powers of Greece, Türkiye and the United Kingdom, for another informal meeting on Cyprus.
The meeting will provide an opportunity to continue the dialogue and exchange views on the progress made since March.
OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY
Turning to the increasingly dire situation in Gaza, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says that overnight, Israeli authorities issued a new displacement order for two neighbourhoods in Khan Younis, following reported Palestinian rocket fire. Up to 80,000 people are estimated to be living in these neighourhoods. Approximately 85 per cent of Gaza’s territory is currently either under displacement orders or located within militarized zones – which is severely hampering people’s access to essential humanitarian support and the ability of aid workers to reach those in need.
Our colleagues working on water, sanitation and hygiene also tell us that Al Satar – a key water reservoir – has become inaccessible as a result of the order. The facility serves as the main water distribution hub for Khan Younis and a critical supply point for water coming through the Israeli pipeline in the area.
Any damage to the reservoir could lead to a collapse of the city’s water distribution system, with grave humanitarian consequences.
OCHA warns that these displacement orders continue to strain vital services and push people into increasingly smaller swaths of Gaza’s territory. Since the breakdown of the ceasefire in March and as of yesterday, some 714,000 people have been forcibly displaced once more across Gaza, with nearly 29,000 displaced in just 24 hours between Sunday and Monday.
Many existing shelters are severely overcrowded, with poor hygiene conditions – posing severe risks for public health. Our partners working on health, water, sanitation and hygiene report that across Gaza, rates of acute watery diarrhea have reached 39 per cent among patients receiving health consultations.
The increase is being driven by insufficient clean drinking and domestic water reaching shelters, worsening the dire hygiene and sanitation conditions. The governorates of Gaza and Khan Younis have the worst levels of acute watery diarrhea, due to severe overcrowding in sites and shelters.
You will recall that no shelter assistance has entered Gaza in four months, despite the hundreds of thousands of newly displaced people. Our shelter partners say that 97 per cent of the sites surveyed reported displaced people sleeping in the open. OCHA reiterates that an unrestricted flow of supplies through multiple crossing points over a sustained period of time is critical to address people’s needs and prevent the already desperate situation from worsening.
Meanwhile, the depletion of fuel stocks continues to wreak havoc on aid operations, constraining the UN and our humanitarian partners’ ability to respond.
Yet again today, an attempt to deliver some of the remaining fuel stocks to the north was denied by Israeli authorities.
The denial follows a successful delivery yesterday of diesel from the World Health Organization’s remaining stock to Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City to prevent further shutdown of critical services. WHO says the facility is overwhelmed and severely under-resourced. Its beds are full, and patients are once again being treated on the floor.
Our partners working on emergency telecommunications stress that unless fuel stocks are replenished immediately, Gaza could face a complete communications blackout, severely hindering humanitarian access and coordination, and preventing affected communities from receiving critical information.
Critical water, sanitation, hygiene and healthcare facilities have already begun shutting down in some areas, including hospital equipment and services, water trucking, and water and sewage pumps. If the fuel crisis isn’t addressed soon, humanitarian responders could be left without the systems and tools necessary to operate safely, manage logistics and distribute humanitarian assistance. This would endanger aid workers and escalate an already dire humanitarian crisis.
Full Highlights:
https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/noon-briefing-highlight?date%5Bvalue%5D%5Bdate%5D=02%20July%202025
Source: United Nations (video statements)
Press Conference by Guy Ryder, the Under-Secretary-General for Policy on the updates on UN80.
The Chair of the UN80 Task Force, Guy Ryder, today (1 Jul) said, the “really substantive” and “policy-focused” part of the UN 80 initiative, will be the mandate implementation review, which will look into nearly 4,000 mandate documents underpinning the UN Secretariat’s work.
Briefing correspondents in New York on updates on the UN80 Initiative, Ryder said, “we have a very heavy corpus, stock of mandates in the form of resolutions and decisions from previous years and decades, which it makes sense for us to subject to detailed scrutiny, not least because they result in a very heavy load of meetings, of reports being produced, make demands both of the Secretariat and of Member States, which merits looking at with a view to improving the way that we organize our work.”
The Under-Secretary-General for Policy said, “if you have a look at the, the organigram of the UN system, you do find quite a baroque architecture. There’s a lot of entities. They’ve grown over the years in an accretional, in an incremental way. Structures are never easy to change once they’re in place, but it does seem sensible to subject this architecture to detailed scrutiny.”
He said the UN 80 initiative “is the United Nations and the Secretary-General responding to the totality of our circumstances, political circumstances, financial circumstances certainly, but also, I think, circumstances in which the effectiveness of multilateralism is up for scrutiny.”
Ryder said, “the idea is to bring the United Nations out of this process, in these rather turbulent times, in better shape, stronger in a position to confront the challenges of today and tomorrow more effectively,” adding that in the end, “this will be the measure of the success of the initiative, able to have greater impact for the people, eventually.
He said, “there are some Member States, particularly those who I think invest and contribute substantially to the system, who are encouraging the Secretary-General to boldness and ambition. They want to see this process bring significant change and improvement in the system. But I think it’s fair to say as well that there is another body of opinion amongst Members who urge a certain degree of caution.”
Ryder said, “we recognize that we have a difficult task of untangling the undergrowth of decisions and resolutions and mechanisms that we put in place to implement them,” and noted that “a similar review undertaken 20 years ago ran rather quickly into the sand. It did not produce the results that were hopeful and expected at that time.”
He said he hoped this time around, “we can avoid some of the pitfalls.”
The UN80 Chair said, “it’s quite clear that we can reach the targets that have been set, but I think what is important in the process of review that the Secretary- General is now engaging in, is that it will not result in a 20 percent – can I use a phrase? – haircut across every department. It is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Rather, the Secretary- General is reviewing the inputs. He will make his determinations on where he believes certain services, certain activities, need to be – the word I could use is protected or not subject to the full rigor of a 20 percent cuts. Those where a greater effort might be called for.”
He said, “what we’re not trying to do is pick off one mandate, because it’s expensive or in view of its resource implications. We are trying to have a more methodical, systemic review of mandates as a whole. The corpus of mandates, identify where duplications and redundancies may exist, where we can, approach implementation in a more rational, streamlined way and produce the types of proposals that we hope Member States will give favourable consideration to.”
The UN80 Task Force will present its proposals to the Secretary-General, who has already indicated the first areas where outcomes are expected. A working group on efficiencies in the UN Secretariat, led by Under-Secretary-General Catherine Pollard, delivered initial proposals at the end of June, and a report on the mandate implementation review will follow at the end of July.
This work under the first two workstreams will help inform broader thinking around structural changes and programme realignment across the UN system. Proposals under the third workstream will be put forward to Member States in the coming months and into next year, and eventually, Member States will decide how to act on the findings.
Source: United Nations (video statements)
More taxes on the super wealthy is not a radical idea but a response to radical inequality in the world, says José Gilberto Scandiucci, Brazil’s Minister-Counsellor to the UN. Speaking at the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, he points out that the world’s wealthiest people pay, on average, 0.3 per cent of their income in taxes.
Source: United Nations (video statements)
Press Conference: Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the UN, and President of the Security Council in July 2025 on the Programme of Work of the Security Council in July.
Source: United Nations (video statements)
One Day, I Will is an ongoing series by photographer Vincent Tremeau, capturing children in crisis-affected settings as they dress up as who they want to become in the future.
In 2025, one year after a magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck Japan’s Noto Peninsula on New Year’s Day, Vincent brought the project to local schools, inviting children to share their dreams, fears, and hopes in the wake of disaster.
These portraits and testimonies are more than dress-up — they reveal resilience, imagination, and the enduring strength of children who continue to dream, despite difficult circumstances. Each of them reminds us: hope can grow even from the most challenging places. “One Day I Will” is one of the exhibits in the UN Pavilion at Expo 2025 in Osaka, Kansai.
The project was made available by OCHA (UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) with support from KUMON, a global after-school math and reading programme.
Source: United Nations (video statements)
Noon Briefing by Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesperson for the Secretary-General.
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Highlights:
Secretary-General / Financing for Development
Deputy Secretary-General
Occupied Palestinian Territory
Syria
Humanitarian Syria
Sudan
Sudan Humanitarian
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Haiti
Briefing
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SECRETARY-GENERAL/ FINANCING FOR DEVELOPMENT
This morning, in Sevilla, Spain, the Secretary-General had a closed meeting with the Heads of the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs). He then had a bilateral meeting with Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla, President of the regional government of Andalusia and the First Vice-President of the European Committee of the Regions.
The Secretary-General left Sevilla in the afternoon. We expect to announce his next travel in the coming days.
DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL
The Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed, was also present at the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD4) in Sevilla, where she delivered remarks at the High-Level session of the International Business Forum. She called for a shift from international assistance to investments in sustainable development and underscored the private sector’s role in delivering impact at scale.
She also participated in a G20-Spain high-level special event on debt sustainability in developing countries alongside Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, and she highlighted the need to break the cycle of debt and welcomed the growing attention from policymakers.
This evening, she will travel to Vienna to address the 68th session of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, organized by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA).
During her time, there she will meet with Member States, senior government officials and the UN system. She will then return to Seville on Thursday for the closing of FFD4.
OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY
Turning to the situation in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military operations have further intensified in northern Gaza since the issuance of the displacement order on Sunday by the Israeli authorities. In the time since that directive was announced, our partners on the ground say that at least 1,500 families have been displaced from North Gaza, as well as eastern parts of Gaza governorate, towards the central and western parts of Gaza governorate.
Over the past 48 hours, five school buildings sheltering displaced families in North Gaza were reportedly hit, with deaths and injuries reported. Initial assessments by partners indicate that many families who fled from the schools that were hit have returned to North Gaza, largely due to the lack of alternatives and limited shelter space elsewhere.
Healthcare also continues to come under attack. The World Health Organization says that in central Gaza yesterday, a tent sheltering displaced people in the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al Balah was reportedly hit, injuring five people. The agency added that the hospital’s internal medicine department also sustained some damage, and its oxygen supply line was affected.
Since October 2023, WHO has documented 734 attacks on healthcare in Gaza. WHO reiterated its call for the protection of civilians and healthcare facilities. OCHA reiterates that under international humanitarian law, civilians and civilian infrastructure must be protected, not targeted.
Regarding aid operations on the ground, OCHA tells us that movement restrictions remain a major challenge, preventing partners from predictably and sustainably providing critical services and assistance.
Full Highlights:
https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/ossg/noon-briefing-highlight?date%5Bvalue%5D%5Bdate%5D=01+July+2025
Source: United Nations (video statements)
How do you generate more investment in sustainable development? Gather business leaders who help to manage trillions of dollars. Right now, they are engaged in discussions with officials from the United Nations and others concerned with achieving progress for people and the planet. UN expert Krishnan Sharma explains the business forum now underway at the International Conference on Financing for Development in Sevilla.
Source: United Nations (video statements)
Briefing by Khaled Khiari, Assistant Secretary-General for the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific, on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question.
Assistant Secretary-General Khaled Khiari today (30 Jun) told the Security Council that “the level of suffering and brutality in Gaza is unbearable,” and “the continued collective punishment of the Palestinian people is unjustifiable.”
Khiari expressed deep concern at “Israeli military operations in Gaza that render large areas of Gaza uninhabitable,” and rejected “the forced displacement of the Palestinian population from any part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which would constitute a breach of international law obligations.”
He mourned the United Nations personnel killed in Gaza and “strongly” condemned “the killing of all health and humanitarian personnel and journalists.”
Khiari also condemned “the loss of lives and injuries of Palestinians seeking aid in Gaza” and called for “an immediate and independent investigation into these events and for perpetrators to be held accountable.”
He stressed that the United Nations “will not participate in any aid delivery modality that does not comply with the fundamental humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, independence, and neutrality.”
