STATEMENT BY
AMBASSADOR DR. AHMAD FAISAL MUHAMAD
PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF MALAYSIA TO THE UNITED NATIONS
AT THE
UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL QUARTERLY OPEN DEBATE
ON THE SITUATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST,
INCLUDING THE PALESTINIAN QUESTION
NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, 23 JULY 2025
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President,
- Malaysia thanks Pakistan for convening this meeting and aligns itself with the statements of NAM and the OIC.
President,
- This Council has convened numerous times to discuss the situation in the Middle East, since the horrific war in Gaza began. Copious alarming reports and distressing accounts have been heard from a broad range of UN officials and other experts. The International Court of Justice issued multiple orders of provisional measures, in January, March and May 2024, due to the plausibility of a genocide being committed in Gaza. And yet, no credible action has been taken.
- Almost 60,000 deaths have been recorded, the majority - women and children. Thousands more bodies are still buried under the rubbles.
- More than 140,000 have been injured. UNICEF estimates that between 3000 to 4000 children in Gaza have had one or more limbs amputated. Gaza is now the home of more child amputees per inhabitants than anywhere else in the world.
- About 2 million Gazans have been forcibly displaced, many of them, multiple times. 92% of housing units have been damaged or destroyed, while 70 – 80% of civilian infrastructure, including schools, hospitals and roads are completely destroyed or damaged.
- 330 UNRWA staff have been killed, the highest number in the UN history.
- More than 200 journalists and media personnel have also become casualties - also a new record.
- The situation in Gaza had been described as “catastrophic”, months ago. Gaza is said to be “a graveyard for children” and “worse than hell on earth”.
- And yet this Council continues to be unmoved, unresponsive and unable to get its act together, allowing the humanitarian condition to deteriorate and massacre of Palestinians to continue.
- Now, the situation has worsened to an even more unimaginable level. Since the set-up of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in May, the shooting and killing of civilians at its food distribution sites has become almost a daily routine. So far, about a thousand Palestinians have been killed. This is outrageous, and must be stopped.
President,
- Surely, we have said and heard enough. What is needed is for the Council to deliver on its mandate. What the entire world has been waiting for is united, firm and bold action, by this Council, to uphold the UN Charter and International Law. Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza must be stopped. Israel must be held accountable for the multitude of war crimes that it has committed, including using starvation as a weapon of war.
- In the West Bank, Israel’s military operations have increased in its scale, frequency and brutality. Settler violence has also heightened, as well as expansion of illegal settlements.
- The impunity that Israel enjoys has emboldened it to intensify its belligerence, not only in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, but throughout the region. Recently, we have witnessed how Israel has thrown the wider region into chaos and instability, by its reckless military actions on Iran, Lebanon and Syria. Clearly Israel is acting as if it is above the law.
President,
- The Security Council must act decisively before it is too late. What is at stake, is not only the extermination of an entire people, but also the total collapse of the rule-based order. Make no mistake, the Council’s actions, or inactions, today, may very well determine whether we will continue to live in peace, guided by international law, or regress into a world of lawlessness, where might is right.
Thank you.
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