Yemen, Gaza & other topics - Daily Press Briefing

All right. Good afternoon, everyone. In a short while, we will be joined virtually by my guest, Jose Barahona, the Resident Coordinator in Djibouti, who will brief on the influx of migrants to Djibouti. 30 p.m., there will be a briefing here by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs on the World Social Report 2026. Speakers will be Bjorg Sandkjaer, Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Coordination, and Rashmi Banga, Chief of the Development Research Branch. The report will be launched during the briefing under the title, "New Economics of Social Inclusion, Making Transformations Work for All." In a social media post, the Secretary-General wished His Holiness, Pope Leo XIV, a speedy recovery following his recent diagnosis. The Secretary-General's prayers and thoughts are with the Pope and the Catholic community worldwide. I have some good news to share with you from Yemen. We welcome the release of Sami Al-Kalabi, a staff member of the Office of the Special Envoy for Yemen, who had been detained by the Houthis since 2024. He is now back home with his family. This is a positive step in the right direction, and we hope he will be able to receive the specialized medical care he urgently requires. We continue to call on the Houthis to immediately and unconditionally release all remaining detained personnel from the United Nations, international and national non-governmental organizations, civil society, and diplomatic missions. As of now, 71 UN personnel remain detained by Houthi de facto authorities. The World Food Programme has warned today that escalating conflict in Yemen has cut off lifesaving assistance to 800,000 people. Shifting frontlines, blocked roads, and growing insecurity are severely restricting humanitarian access in the city of Taiz and other areas affected by the conflict. The loss of access is especially alarming, given that Taiz has some of the country's highest levels of food insecurity, with 10 out of 16 districts previously classified at emergency levels. That is phase four on the integrated food security phase classification. While access to some of the worst affected areas remain cut off, WFP has provided emergency assistance to more than 115,000 people newly displaced by the fighting in locations it can still reach. Safe and sustained humanitarian access, together with immediate funding, are critical to ensure assistance can be rapidly delivered wherever and whenever conditions permit. WFP warns that without new funding, it will be forced to significantly reduce assistance from November, just as more families are being forced from their homes and relying on humanitarian support to survive. Yesterday and today, our colleagues working on safety and security in Gaza recorded multiple airstrikes, as well as shelling, demolition blasts, naval fire, and shooting across all of Gaza's governorates, particularly west of the so-called yellow line. We reiterate that civilians and civilian infrastructure must be protected at all times. Meanwhile, we and our partners continue to bring urgently needed supplies into Gaza. Yesterday, we brought in additional food, plastic tarpaulins, winter clothing, medicines, and medical supplies. However, the items we can bring in are insufficient to meet people's needs. Our partners say deliveries are constrained by underfunding and Israeli restrictions. These include bans on some partners' operations, limits on critical imports such as engine oil and spare parts, and restrictions on access to more than 64% of the land. Turning to the West Bank, our Human Rights Office reports that yesterday, Israeli forces raided the premises of Palestinian civil society organizations at a medical complex in Ramallah, confiscating files and equipment and detaining people. Our partners called on Israeli authorities to stop the crackdown on Palestinian civic space noting that such raids and the detention of human rights defenders and protection workers have had a chilling effect. Turning to Lebanon, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, UN Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations, today met in Beirut with President Joseph Aoun, Speaker Nabih Berri, and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, as well as the Commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces, General Rudolph Heikal, and other officials. Discussions focused on the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1701. Tomorrow, Mr. LeCointe will travel to Nakoura in southern Lebanon to meet with the mission's leadership and staff. And staying in the region, UNICEF says that tragically on Monday in northern Israel, unexploded ordnance detonated during a school hike near the border with Lebanon, killing a teenage Israeli boy and injuring around 20 fellow students and teachers. This terrible incident is a painful reminder that every year around the world, unexploded ordnance continues to kill and injure children. A new UNICEF fact sheet shows that between 2021 and 2025, nearly one in seven children the UN verified as killed or maimed in conflict were harmed by explosive remnants of war or landmines. Hanne Tettey, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Libya, told the Security Council this morning that the smaller convening agreement and the political progress made in recent months are important milestones, but significant challenges remain. These challenges, she said, are amplified by the continued rejection by some parties to engage constructively and by the use of inflammatory rhetoric and disinformation, which risk hardening political positions, eroding willingness to compromise, and seeking to justify unilateral actions that would undermine the political process or lead to violence. Ms. Tette acknowledged the need to ensure greater inclusivity going forward and said that the UN mission in Libya will reflect that in any other processes developed to advance the political conditions to unify and strengthen institutions and support the holding of peaceful and credible national elections. The Special Representative affirmed that the path to a stable, unified, and prosperous Libya remains long, but our destination remains within reach. She urged all concerned actors to demonstrate the flexibility and political will needed to reach common ground. On Ethiopia, Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher yesterday released $8.5 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund to support the humanitarian response. The new funding will help address the urgent needs of more than 200,000 people across the northern regions and support water, sanitation and hygiene, shelter, health and nutrition services. Meanwhile, our humanitarian partners report that access continues to improve, particularly in the Tigray region. Following the resumption of flights yesterday, more roads are now considered safe for humanitarian movements. Since our last update, additional food and medical supplies were delivered to the regions of Afar, Amhara, and Tigray. These include 80 trucks carrying more than 315 metric tons of food commodities, and more than 45 metric tons of medical supplies to support 19 health facilities across Tigray. However, our humanitarian colleagues tell us that the security situation remains volatile in parts of Afar, Amhara, and Tigray. And humanitarians remain concerned by the ongoing fighting, artillery shelling, incidents of looting, and disruptions to health services. Concern is also growing that food insecurity will worsen across the northern regions. This is due to poor harvest, displacement, and disrupted livelihoods, which place pressure on vulnerable households, many of which have exhausted their coping capacities. And we have a quick update from our peacekeeping colleagues in the Central African Republic. As the annual cattle migration season gets underway, the UN mission, MINUSCA, is supporting a series of workshops at the prefecture level, bringing together local authorities, security forces, and community representatives to identify high-risk areas and agree on measures to strengthen mediation, early warning systems, and coordination. Seasonal cattle migration has been a key driver of local intercommunal conflicts in parts of the country. During the 2025-2026 season, over 130 incidents related to the migration were recorded, resulting in at least 36 deaths and 46 injuries, which underscores the persistent challenges associated with managing seasonal cattle movements. The initiative is part of MINUSCA's broader efforts to help prevent conflict and protect civilians. And last, from Ukraine, our colleagues at the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs tell us that another wave of large-scale attacks overnight killed and injured several civilians. According to authorities, the capital, Kyiv, was among the hardest hit. Our humanitarian colleagues tell us that the attacks also caused widespread disruption to essential services. According to authorities, energy facilities in Kyiv and the surrounding region, as well as in the region of Kharkiv, were targeted. All three major heat and power plants in the capital were attacked, leaving 600,000 people without electricity and water in parts of the city. In the Rivne and Volyn regions, previously less impacted by hostilities, drone attacks also killed and injured several people, damaging a university, a shopping center, and residential buildings. Civilian casualties were also reported in the regions of Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, Khmelnytskyi, Lviv, Kerson and Sumi. Humanitarian organizations have again been impacted. Yesterday, three aid workers from the Ukrainian Red Cross Society were injured in an attack in the frontline town of Slovyansk in the region of Donetsk. The organization's premises were also damaged. We, along with our humanitarian partners, responded rapidly, complementing the efforts of municipal services and local NGOs. They provided materials for emergency repairs, warm clothing, hot meals, and humanitarian cash assistance to impacted residents. That's it for me. Are there any questions before we turn to our guest? Yes, please.

My question would be about the continued attacks involving the Houthis and Saudi Arabia. What would be the UN Secretary General's assessment on these recent developments and the possibility of other Gulf countries being drawn into an active military escalation in the region? And is his assessment still focused on calling for political settlements through negotiations?

Yes, our focus remains on making sure that there is a political settlement. As you know, our special envoy Hans Grunberg had been working to secure such agreements before. And of course, he has been alarmed by the recent escalation. But certainly we want the fighting to stop. As I just pointed out, the World Food Program is very worried because people who need food aid in and around Tais are now being cut off by the recent fighting. And of course, you'll have seen the statements we've said in the last days from the Secretary General warning against this current escalation. And we again reiterate what he said. Abdulhamid.

Thank you, Farhan. I have two questions. On Azerbaijan, the President passed a decree banning hijab in the classroom. Do you have any statement on that?

I don't have any reaction. I would suggest you contact our human rights colleagues. Of course, we want to make sure that all states respect the religious freedoms of all of their groups.

And my second question, recently, Secretary of State Rubio gave a speech in Munich, Germany, in which he praised the period of colonialism almost calling for a rebirth of Western domination and colonialism. I mean, he didn't explicitly say, go ahead and colonize countries, but he asked to reinvent great empires. Have you come across, or the SGA had any thoughts on this kind of strange speech? by a senior U.S. official.

We don't normally comment on just all the various speeches given by foreign officials. Of course, you see where the U.N. has stood on the issue of colonialism, and you've seen the work done by U.N. bodies, including the Trusteeship Council and our committees on decolonization over the years. And with that, I turn to Islam.

Farhan.

Farhan, thank you very much. I just would like to ask a question about your visit to Lebanon. Lebanese government requested UN presence after UNIFIL, you know, the completed at the end of the year. I know Secretary General offered some options to the Security Council. At this point, do you have anything, any new development in this regard? Thank you.

Well, the latest development is what I just read out at the start of this briefing, which is that our Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, is in Lebanon right now. Today, he met with the President, the Speaker, and the Prime Minister, as well as the Commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces. And he will meet with the leadership of the UNIFIL mission tomorrow. But this comes in the context of us trying to deal with the current situation where, as you know, as matters now stand, UNIFIL is slated to end its operations as of the 31st of December. As you just pointed out, the Security Council has the Secretary-General's alternatives, and we are waiting for their response. And with that, Ephrem.

Thank you, Farhan. On the release of the UN staff member in Yemen, do you have any more details for us about the circumstances of his release, and also what exactly is his medical health situation?

I don't think I would be able to share the details of his health situation. We have had health concerns about our colleague, our colleague Sami al-Kalabi. And now that he's free, we want to make sure that he gets the specialized medical care that he's been needing. But certainly, he was released by the de facto authorities. And we again call, as I've just said, for the release of our other 71 remaining detained personnel, as well as all other personnel, including from international NGOs and former UN staff who continue to be held. Sure, go ahead.

Can you hear me?

Yes, you have a bit of an echo. Try again.

It's Evelyn.

I think someone else will have to mute because you have two speakers going, I think. Try now. Okay. I don't hear from you. I think, Evelyn, please e-mail me your question and I'll try to get back to you on that.