The UN and the crisis in the Middle East: What you need to know (2023)

What you need to know about the United Nations response to the conflict in the Middle East.

5 November

An UNRWA-run school in Jabalia camp Gaza was directly hit by strikes, which killed 15 people & injured 70 who were sheltering in the school. The same day, strikes near an
UNRWA school in Nuseirat camp injured 10 people sheltering in the school.

4 November

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said he was “horrified” by a strike on an ambulance convoy outside a hospital in the Gaza Strip on Friday, reiterating his appeal for a humanitarian ceasefire.

3 November

More funding is urgently needed for lifesaving aid in Gaza while concern is deepening over high numbers of civilians killed since the beginning of the crisis and human rights violations against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. (UN News)

2 November

Time is running out to prevent genocide and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, UN experts warned today, expressing deep frustration with Israel’s refusal to halt plans to decimate the besieged Gaza strip.

In the past 24 hours alone, four UNRWA shelters were damaged in the Gaza Strip (UNRWA).

The number of people killed in Gaza is nearing the 9,000 mark amid mounting concerns over the aftermath of Israeli airstrikes on a densely-populated refugee camp near Gaza City, while a key hospital has stopped operations and UN humanitarians are unable to deliver aid to the north as the ground war intensifies. (UN News)

The UN Charter remains humanity’s best hope for peace.

Amid geopolitical divisions, member countries must uphold it & ensure that the UN lives up to what it was meant to be:

A forum for solutions.

A guardian of international law.

And a force for peace and security.

António Guterres

Secretary-General of the United Nations (27 May 2026)

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