UAE joins Global Alliance meeting on two-state solution in Riyadh

Ninety-four countries and international organisations joined the two-day conference in Riyadh from 30-31 October, which opened with keynote addresses by His Highness Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Foreign Minister of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

The UAE delegation was headed by Lana Nusseibeh, Assistant Minister for Political Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. During the conference, Nusseibeh expressed appreciation for Saudi Arabia’s role in facilitating international efforts to achieve the Two-State Solution, adding that the Kingdom’s historic leadership was needed now more than ever. She underlined the UAE’s unwavering commitment to a future where the two states of Palestine and Israel live side by side, in peace with each other and with their neighbors. She rejected all attempts to create facts on the ground that obstruct this goal.

In light of the appalling number of people who have been killed and wounded since the start of the conflict, Nusseibeh renewed the call for the unconditional protection of civilians and aid workers. She reflected on the UAE’s leading role in providing humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza, and urged rapid, full and unimpeded humanitarian access at scale.

She warned against the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza, including in the north where 400,000 people are cut off from aid provision, and she cited the recent Integrated Food Security Phase Classification alerts that more than 1.8 million people across Gaza are living through high levels of acute food insecurity. In this context, she reiterated the UAE’s condemnation of laws targeting the essential work of UNRWA, and stressed that UNRWA staff and premises are protected under international law, including international humanitarian law, and must be respected.

In her engagements in Riyadh, Lana Nusseibeh highlighted the dangers of rising tensions and the escalation of military conflict throughout the region. She renewed the UAE’s call for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Gaza, and the release of all hostages and detainees.

Moreover, Nusseibeh expressed the UAE’s deep concern with the ongoing developments in Lebanon, the repercussions of the dangerous escalation, and its impact on regional stability. In this regard, Nusseibeh affirmed the UAE’s unwavering commitment to Lebanon’s unity, its national sovereignty, and territorial integrity, and underscored the country’s support to the Lebanese people in the current circumstances.

At the conference, the UAE also highlighted the dangers posed by the spread of incitement and hate speech on both sides of the conflict, and stressed the devastating toll this is taking in the West Bank, where settler violence is targeting Palestinians with impunity.

In this context, the UAE pointed to existing frameworks for dealing with this challenge, in particular United Nations Security Council Resolution 2686 (2023) on “Tolerance and International Peace and Security”, which identifies hate speech, extremism and intolerance as drivers of conflict, and outlines ways in which states and societies work together in countering this threat.