Cop30, Palestine, Lebanon & other topics - Daily Press Briefing (17 Nov 2025) | United Nations

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Noon Briefing by Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesperson for the Secretary-General. Highlights: Senior Personnel Appointment Secretary-General/Cop30 Occupied Palestinian Territory Lebanon/Israel Security Council/Food Insecurity Ukraine Abyei Hurricane Melissa Srebrenica Road Traffic Victims Briefings Today and Tomorrow SENIOR PERSONNEL APPOINTMENT Today, the Secretary-General, following consultations with the Executive Board of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), wrote to the President of the General Assembly requesting the General Assembly to confirm Alexander De Croo of Belgium as the new Administrator of UNDP for a term of four years. The General Assembly confirmed the nomination today. Mr. De Croo succeeds Achim Steiner of Germany to whom the Secretary-General is grateful for his leadership and commitment to the Organization. He also wishes to express his appreciation to Haoliang Xu, Associate Administrator of UNDP, who has been handling the interim and will continue to do so until Mr. De Croo’s arrival. Just as background. Mr. De Croo has dedicated much of his career to public service advancing global solidarity, combining political leadership, development cooperation, and innovation. As former Prime Minister of Belgium from 2020 to 2025, he worked closely with multilateral institutions to steer structural change for people in some of the world’s most vulnerable regions, having consistently supported UNDP as a key partner. SECRETARY-GENERAL/COP30 The Secretary-General has arrived in Belém, in Brazil, a few hours ago, where, as you all know, COP30 is currently under way. As mentioned last week, during the next few days, he will be meeting with negotiating parties, including various regional groups and ministers. He will also engage with civil society representatives, indigenous peoples and youth.   OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY Turning to the situation in Gaza, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warns that the humanitarian situation remains very difficult, with many people struggling to access the basics they need to survive. Following heavy rains on Friday, humanitarian teams carried out rapid assessments of impacted areas over the weekend and provided some initial aid. More than 13,000 families are estimated to have been impacted by the flooding. According to our partners working on shelter, over the weekend, they helped distribute at least 9,000 tents, 83,000 tarpaulins and 59,000 blankets, with thousands more planned in the coming days. While we and our partners have moved swiftly to respond to rain-affected areas, our efforts remain constrained by inadequate volumes of shelter and other necessary supplies allowed to enter through the UN-coordinated mechanism. With temperatures dropping and winter fast approaching, we must be allowed to expand the shelter response to meet the vast scale of needs across the Gaza Strip. We continue to call for unrestricted, for rapid and sustained access; the opening of additional crossings; facilitation of entry of tents that are currently restricted, as well as critical equipment to maintain storm drains and repair sanitation networks; permissions for NGOs to bring in supplies; and the safe movement of humanitarian convoys. Since 10 October, at least nine attempts by the United Nations and our partners to bring in tents have been rejected. Our partners working on food security report that with the volume of food parcels entering Gaza having increased in recent days, they plan to resume the distribution of two food parcels and one bag of flour [per household] across the Strip. Earlier last week, distributions in the north had to be limited to high-energy biscuits and one bag of flour because partners working to bring supplies were facing impediments, including the de-prioritization of humanitarian cargo at crossings, customs clearance delays, and lack of access to northern crossings. Meanwhile, our colleagues working on efforts to remove rubble and debris from roads and communities tell us that they have cleared 100,000 tons of debris since the ceasefire came into effect. However, nearly 58 million tons of debris and rubble remain spread across the Gaza Strip – and only half of that amount is currently accessible. Full Highlights: https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/noon-briefing-highlight?date=2025-11-17