International Day of Peacekeepers, Middle East & other topics- Daily Press Briefing | United Nations

Noon Briefing by Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesperson for the Secretary-General. Highlights: International Day Of UN Peacekeepers Middle East Occupied Palestinian Territory Unrwa Yemen Sudan Haiti Ukraine Global Climate Predictions Global Employment Growth INTERNATIONAL DAY OF UN PEACEKEEPERS Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations, who be the guest on Thursday to brief reporters on the International Day of Peacekeepers. As part of that at 2:45pm tomorrow, the Secretary-General will lay a wreath to honour the more than 4,400 United Nations peacekeepers who have given their lives in the line of duty since 1948. He will also preside over a ceremony in the Trusteeship Council, during which the Dag Hammarskjöld Medals will be awarded posthumously to 57 military, police, and civilian peacekeepers, who lost their lives serving under the flag of the United Nations last year. At 3 p.m., the Secretary-General will present awards to the 2024 Military Gender Advocate of the Year. That is Squadron Leader Sharon Mwinsote Syme of Ghana and he will also present an award to the UN Woman Police Officer of the Year, and that is Superintendent Zainab Gbla of Sierra Leone. Both serve with the peacekeeping mission in Abyei. MIDDLE EAST Sigrid Kaag, the acting UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, briefed the Security Council this morning, telling Council members that the two-State solution is on life support and reviving it requires decisive action. She said the upcoming high-level international conference in June, co-chaired by France and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, must not be another rhetorical exercise and instead must launch a concrete path towards ending the occupation and realizing the two-State solution based on international law, UN resolutions and previous agreements. Ms. Kaag warned that the entire population of Gaza is facing the risk of famine. As the Secretary-General has said, families are being starved and denied the very basics. She added that while Gaza rightly captures the world’s attention, the West Bank is on a dangerous trajectory. Developments are best described as accelerating de facto annexation through settlement expansion, through land seizures, and through settler violence. If not reversed, Ms. Kaag said, these will make the two-State solution physically impossible. Ms. Kaag will also be speaking to you after the Council session has ended. We are advised that there will likely not be closed consultations afterwards and we will let you know when she is there. Full Highlights: https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/noon-briefing-highlight?date%5Bvalue%5D%5Bdate%5D=28%20May%202025


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