Source: United Nations (video statements)
As Colin Stewart, Head of the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus concludes his nearly four-year tenure, he reflects on the main mandate of the mission: preventing conflict along the narrow Buffer Zone that divides the two communities on the island.
Source: United Nations (video statements)
Briefing by Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), on the situation in the Middle East – Security Council, 9983rd meeting.
————–
Amid the precarious military and political situation, 16 million Syrians across the country need humanitarian aid, according to Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher.
Additionally, over 185,000 people have been displaced across Sweida, Dar’a, Rural Damascus and beyond.
“The overall situation is dire. We need to sustain urgent delivery of food, health, shelter, clean water, fuel, restoration of water and electricity infrastructure, education. In some areas, those arriving now outnumber the existing population. Services are overwhelmed,” said Mr. Fletcher.
Teams from the UN humanitarian aid coordination office (OCHA) have visited Sweida and other towns, delivering aid and assessing needs.
OCHA has also provided emergency food packages, flour and essential household items to tens of thousands of people.
However, insecurity and road closures have disrupted the supply of aid from the UN, NGO partners and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.
“We need better humanitarian and commercial access. And most of all, we need safety,” Mr. Fletcher stressed, particularly referring to attacks on aid convoys, health facilities, medics and ambulances.
Nevertheless, “despite funding and security challenges, the UN and partners are delivering as much lifesaving support as we can with the resources we have,” reaching 3.5 million people on average each month, a noticeable increase from last year.
But with the 2025 humanitarian appeal in the country only 14 per cent funded, ongoing aid cuts in many Western capitals are projected to lead to reduced staffing of at least 40 per cent across the humanitarian community inside Syria.
The UN relief chief emphasised that without more funding, “we won’t be able to sustain these vital efforts, let alone expand them to more people who need them.”
Furthermore, while he urged humanitarian support, he also stressed that long-term development investment is needed in Syria “to reduce and ultimately end reliance on humanitarian aid.”
Source: United Nations (video statements)
Melissa Fleming, Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications, moderates the World Photo Day Panel with Women Photographers from Conflict Areas.
This World Photo Day, the United Nations hosted Through Her Lens: Perspectives on Peace, a panel featuring photographers Rita Kabalan (Lebanon), Mona Elfateh (Sudan), Narline Novembre (Haiti), Do Nsoseme Dora (Democratic Republic of the Congo), and Cailley Frank-Lehrer from Photoville New York, moderated by Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications Melissa Fleming.
The panel explored the power of women telling their communities’ stories with empathy, nuance, and dignity, and the incredible resilience that drives them to persist despite the risks and barriers they face in conflict-affected contexts.
This conversation is part of the broader exhibition Through Her Lens: Women Rising for Peace, which features powerful images of peacebuilders and peacekeepers advancing the Women, Peace and Security agenda captured by local women photographers from different conflict-affected areas.
Organized by the United Nations Department of Peace Operations, the United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs and UN Women.
#WomenPeaceSecurity #Photoville
Explore the full exhibition here: https://throughherlens.un.org
Source: United Nations (video statements)
Briefing by Natalia Gherman, Assistant Secretary-General, and Executive Director of the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate, on threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts.
—
Natalia Gherman, head of the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate, warned of Da’esh’s exploitation of artificial intelligence. “Da’esh’s use of artificial intelligence and social media for recruitment, fundraising and propaganda demands innovative responses,” she said, while stressing the same tools could help states disrupt terrorist activities.
Source: United Nations (video statements)
During his visit to Japan, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres visited Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai. World Expos are not just feel-good exhibitions, “they are invitations to tell our stories,” The UN chief told festival goers on a special day celebrating the global organization.
Source: United Nations (video statements)
More than half a million people in Gaza are trapped in famine, marked by widespread starvation, destitution and preventable deaths, according to a new Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis released today. Famine conditions are projected to spread from Gaza Governorate to Deir Al Balah and Khan Younis Governorates in the coming weeks.
Source: United Nations (video statements)
Noon Briefing by Daniela Gross, Associate Spokesperson for the Secretary-General.
Highlights:
Secretary-General/Gaza
Occupied Palestinian Territory
Secretary-General/Travels
Security Council
Security Council/Libya
Global Health Challenges/Extreme Heat
Senior Personnel Appointment
International Days
SECRETARY-GENERAL/GAZA
In a statement issued early this morning, the Secretary-General said that just when it seems there are no words left to describe the living hell in Gaza, a new one has been added: “famine”. This is not a mystery, he said; it is a man-made disaster, a moral indictment and a failure of humanity itself.
The Secretary-General noted that famine is not only about food; it is the deliberate collapse of the systems needed for human survival. He pointed out that people are starving, children are dying and those with the duty to act are failing.
The Secretary-General said that as the occupying power, Israel has unequivocal obligations under international law, including the duty of ensuring food and medical supplies of the population. He stressed that we cannot allow this situation to continue with impunity.
No more excuses, the Secretary-General said, adding that the time for action is not tomorrow, it is now. He emphasized that we need an immediate ceasefire, the immediate release of all hostages and full, unfettered humanitarian access.
There have been also several other statements on this, including from our Emergency Relief Coordinator, UN Agencies and our UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. All of those statements are available online.
OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY
Now on the humanitarian side, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs remind us, again today, that civilians are bearing the brunt of this war. As strikes continue to intensify across the Strip, casualties are flooding hospitals’ emergency departments.
We and our partners continue to warn of the catastrophic consequences that the intensification of the ongoing offensive in Gaza city would have for civilians. Overnight and into today, multiple strikes were reported in the Jabalya Al Balad and An Nazla neighbourhoods. Our partners monitoring population movements in the Strip say that as a result, about 900 people reportedly left, heading towards the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood and western Gaza city.
Once again, we remind parties to the conflict of their obligations under international law to protect civilians, including humanitarian workers and those who cannot or choose not to move. As we have said before, those fleeing must be allowed to do so safely. They must also be allowed to return if they wish to do so, as the situation allows. OCHA reiterates the urgency of ensuring people have access to aid and basic services, whether they leave or stay. Supplies must be allowed to enter Gaza through all available crossings and corridors. We and our humanitarian partners must have safe, predictable and sustained access to deliver aid at scale to people in immense need of assistance.
Our colleagues working on health remind us that nearly half of all hospitals and field hospitals are located in Gaza city and account for 40 per cent of the total inpatient bed capacity in all of the Gaza Strip. Expansion of military operations would further cripple the collapsing healthcare system.
Many medical facilities in the south are operating several times over their bedspace capacity. Partners stress that access to healthcare must be immediately restored to avert more preventable deaths.
Full highlights: https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/noon-briefing-highlight?date%5Bvalue%5D%5Bdate%5D=22%20August%202025
Source: United Nations (video statements)
It’s Famine in Gaza says Tom Fletcher, the Head of OCHA.
More than half a million people in Gaza are trapped in famine, marked by widespread starvation, destitution and preventable deaths, according to a new Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis released today by the United Nations. Briefing journalists on Friday at UN headquarters in Geneva, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher said it was a famine that could have been prevented ‘if we had been allowed.’
‘Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel. It is a famine within a few hundred metres of food, in a fertile land’, he added.
Source: United Nations (video statements)
@unitednations
▶ https://youtu.be/hRXeJ7IVaYk
When war comes home, with Yacoub El Hillo | United Nations ‘Awake at Night’ podcast teaser
—
Yacoub El Hillo spent more than thirty years serving refugees and displaced people in some of the world’s worst conflict zones. But when cataclysmic war erupted in his hometown of Khartoum, Sudan, the Regional Director for Africa at the United Nations Development Coordination Office (DCO) had to help his own family flee the violence.
“I don’t think there’s any home in Khartoum that was spared … the assumption is that everything is gone.”
Having served in more than 16 duty stations, from Liberia to Syria, Somalia and Afghanistan, Yacoub El Hillo has rarely seen any conflict as devastating as the one currently decimating Sudan.
In this episode, he reflects on the scale of the human suffering there, looks back on a rich and varied career with the UN, and shares why all nations deserve a chance to strive for a brighter future.
Source: United Nations (video statements)
Briefing by Mr. Geir Pedersen, the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Syria, on the situation on the Middle East – Security Council, 9983rd meeting.
——————
The UN Special Envoy for Syria briefed the Security Council on Thursday, saying that amid a strained ceasefire and military skirmishes in Syria, the political transition “remains on a knife’s edge”.
Geir Pedersen told ambassadors that in Sweida governate, where sectarian violence in July also spurred conflict in the capital Damascus, the 19 July ceasefire has come under strain, but the conflict has not resumed so far.
However, “we are still seeing dangerous hostilities and skirmishes on the margins of Sweida, and violence could resume at any moment,” he said.
In northeast Syria, efforts to implement the 10 March agreement between the interim security forces and the mostly-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) continue. Just this month, there have been spikes in violence between the two militaries in the Aleppo governorate.
While attempts to convene the two sides outside of the country have been unsuccessful, Mr. Pedersen welcomed reports of contacts between officials.
Despite these security incidents, Mr. Pedersen stressed that the situation has been relatively calm this month, applauding the efforts of those who have worked to tamp down hostilities.
However, in terms of the political situation, “the country remains deeply fragile and the transition remains on a knife-edge.”
After 13 years of civil war, Mr. Pedersen underscored the need for an inclusive, Syrian-led political transition that enables the Syrian people determine their own future peacefully, independently and democratically.
“Syrians need to feel that this transition is not a series of ad hoc arrangements and isolated institutions, but a clear and comprehensive path, based on inclusion and transparency, to implement the principles of resolution 2254,” he said.
To encourage the voluntary, safe return of refugees and internally displaced persons, Mr. Pedersen stressed the need for coordinated support to repair Syria’s depleted infrastructure.
“The best way to secure such support is through a genuine political transition that lays the path for long-term stability and sustainable governance. Indeed, without credible reforms, stronger institutions, and a firm commitment to the rule of law, international support risks being squandered or misdirected,” he stressed.
