Diplomats convened at UN Headquarters in New York on Friday to lay the groundwork for a crucial international conference in June, aimed at advancing global efforts towards achieving a two-State solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
The preparatory session brought together UN Member States to align expectations and finalise arrangements for eight thematic roundtables that will help shape the conference's outcome.
General Assembly President Philémon Yang urged countries to seize the crucial opportunity to finally make progress.
"The horrors we have witnessed in Gaza for over nineteen months should spur us to urgent action to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The devastating cycles of death, destruction, and displacement cannot be allowed to continue," he said.
"This conflict cannot be resolved through permanent war, nor through endless occupation or annexation. It will only end when Israelis and Palestinians can live side by side in their own sovereign, independent States, in peace, security, and dignity," he added.
Concrete outcomes needed
Co-chairs France and Saudi Arabia emphasised the need for the June conference to go beyond reaffirming principles and achieve concrete results on the ground.
"We must urgently move from words to deeds. We must move from ending the war in Gaza to ending the conflict itself," said Anne-Claire Legendre, Middle East and North Africa advisor to French President Emmanuel Macron.
"Faced with the facts on the ground, the prospects of a Palestinian State must be maintained. Irreversible steps and concrete measures for the implementation thereof are necessary."
Alongside, she reiterated calls for a lasting ceasefire, an immediate influx of humanitarian aid and the release of hostages.
Historic moment
Manal bint Hassan Radwan, head of the Saudi Arabian negotiating team, called the moment "historic," stating that the preparatory meeting must "chart a course for action, not reflection."
"Civilians continue to pay the price of a war that must end immediately. The escalation in the West Bank is equally alarming. Despair grows deeper by the day," she said.
"This is precisely why we must speak not only of ending the war, but of ending a conflict that has lasted nearly eight decades," she continued, adding efforts to end fighting and secure release of hostages and detainees must be "anchored in a credible and irreversible political plan that addresses the root cause of the conflict and offers a real path to peace, dignity and mutual security."
Outcome document
The General Assembly decided to convene the conference in its resolution ES-10/24
