Arria-formula Meeting on the West Bank, including East Jerusalem*
Tomorrow morning (8 May), the Security Council’s five European members—Denmark, France, Greece, Latvia, and the UK—will convene an Arria-formula meeting on the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Three civil society representatives are expected to brief: a Palestinian, an Israeli, and an international expert.
The meeting will take place from 10 am to 1 pm EST in Conference Room 4 at UN Headquarters and is expected to be broadcast on UNTV. In addition to Security Council members, it is open to other UN member states and observer states, with priority given to states from the region.
According to the concept note prepared by the co-organisers, prospects for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “are being gravely and steadily eroded by the deteriorating situation in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem”, with settler violence and settlement expansion rising at “unprecedented levels”. The concept note argues that the Israeli government’s policies to expand control in the West Bank, enable settlement expansion, and facilitate the forced displacement of Palestinians “run counter” to the US-brokered Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict, which the Security Council endorsed through resolution 2803 of 17 November 2025, and “jeopardise prospects for achieving just and lasting peace”.
The meeting aims to allow Council members to hear testimony on the severe challenges facing Palestinians in the West Bank and to consider ways to strengthen the protection of civilians, ensure accountability, halt further displacement and settlement expansion, and address the economic crisis facing the Palestinian Authority (PA). The concept note frames the discussion as an opportunity to reflect on the implementation of resolution 2334 of 23 December 2016—which condemned Israeli settlements and called for immediate steps to prevent violence against civilians—as well as the New York Declaration on the implementation of the two-state solution, which the General Assembly endorsed in September 2025.
Tomorrow’s meeting comes at a moment when sustained Council attention to the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) is competing with the regional Middle East crisis triggered by the joint Israeli–US strikes on Iran that began on 28 February and Iran’s subsequent retaliation across the region. At recent Council meetings, several members have voiced concern that an exclusive focus on the regional escalation and its impact on the Gaza peace plan risks diverting attention from the West Bank, even as developments there continue to undermine the viability of a two-state solution. Tomorrow’s meeting appears intended in part to raise the visibility of the West Bank on the Council’s agenda.
The continued intensification of settler violence and Palestinian displacement in the West Bank will be a major focus of the meeting. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 33 Palestinians were killed and 790 injured by Israeli forces or settlers during the first quarter of 2026. There have been over 540 settler attacks so far this year resulting in casualties or property damage. In addition, more than 2,500 Palestinians have been displaced as a result of demolitions, settler attacks, and evictions. These figures represent a continuation of the trends of rising violence and displacement in the West Bank observed in recent years: between January 2023 and December 2025, OCHA recorded 4,575 settler attacks resulting in casualties or property damage—with annual incidents rising from 1,291 in 2023 to 1,835 in 2025—and the full or partial displacement of 87 Palestinian communities. More than 33,000 residents of the Jenin, Tulkarm, and Nur Shams refugee camps remain displaced following sustained Israeli military operations launched in January 2025.
Settlement activity has also accelerated. Briefing the Council on 24 March on the latest report of the Secretary-General on the implementation of resolution 2334, which covered the period between 3 December 2025 and 13 March 2026, Deputy Special Coordinator and Resident Coordinator at the Office of the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO) Ramiz Alakbarov reported that Israeli planning authorities had advanced or approved over 6,000 housing units in the West Bank. This included 3,401 units in the E1 settlement block, an area of land east of Jerusalem whose development would, according to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), physically isolate East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank “in a manner that contributes to the fragmentation of the [OPT] and the ongoing denial by Israel of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination”.
Additionally, on 25 March, the Israeli cabinet approved 34 settlements across Area C—the part of the West Bank under full Israeli military control—in the largest such approval in a single cabinet resolution. The decision reportedly brought the total number of settlements approved by the current Israeli government to 103, compared with the six new settlements that were formally approved by Israel in the 30 years between the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 and the establishment of the current government in 2022. This acceleration has occurred alongside a series of recent government measures intended to deepen Israeli administrative control over parts of the West Bank and facilitate the expropriation of Palestinian land. (For more information, see our 17 February What’s in Blue story.)
The economic situation in the West Bank is also dire. Briefing the Council during a 28 April meeting (S/PV.10146), Assistant Secretary-General for the Middle East, Europe, the Americas, Asia and the Pacific Mohamed Khaled Khiari reported that the PA faces an “existential fiscal crisis” that threatens “the institutional foundations of a future independent Palestinian State”. He cited in this regard nine months of clearance revenues owed to the PA that Israel has withheld, public debt exceeding $14 billion, and pressures on correspondent banking arrangements.
At tomorrow’s meeting, several of the briefers are expected to provide first-hand testimony on the impact of settler violence, settlement expansion, and movement and access restrictions on Palestinian communities. They may underscore that the forcible transfer of protected persons by an occupying power may amount to a breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention and a war crime, and reference the July 2024 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which found Israel’s continued presence in the OPT unlawful and called on all states to refrain from rendering aid or assistance in maintaining the situation. The briefers may highlight gaps in accountability for settler attacks, citing patterns documented by OHCHR in which Israeli police have closed cases without effective investigation, and call for credible investigations into all incidents of violence, including those involving Israeli security forces.
The briefers might also describe the impact of Israeli measures on UN agencies and humanitarian organisations. These include new registration requirements for international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) and continuing challenges facing the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) as a result of Israeli legislation passed in October 2024 prohibiting UNRWA from operating on Israeli territory, which the country interprets as encompassing the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.* On the economic situation, the briefers might describe the impact of the PA’s fiscal crisis on the delivery of basic services and call for the immediate transfer of withheld clearance revenues, sustained donor support, and steps to ease movement and access restrictions.
Most Council members are expected to reiterate their opposition to settlement expansion, settler violence, and unilateral measures that undermine the viability of a two-state solution, and to call for full implementation of relevant Council decisions in this regard. The five co-organisers are likely to use the meeting to amplify the testimony of the briefers and press for concrete protection, accountability, and economic measures; France, which co-led the General Assembly’s endorsement of the New York Declaration with Saudi Arabia, is likely to underscore the importance of building on that framework. These and several other members, including Arab or Muslim-majority ones such as Bahrain, Pakistan, and Somalia, as well as others like China and Russia, are expected to emphasise the need to advance Palestinian self-determination, the territorial unity of the OPT, and the centrality of the PA.
The US, Israel’s closest ally on the Council, is likely to be less critical about the country’s actions in the West Bank. The current administration of US President Donald Trump has been more equivocal than former administrations on its support for the two-state solution, criticised resolution 2334, and remained opposed to broader Council action to pressure Israel in this regard. Nonetheless, the US has stated that it is opposed to Israeli annexation of the West Bank and may reiterate that message tomorrow.
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**Post-script (11 May): A previous version of the story mis-characterised the areas in which the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is not permitted to operate under Israeli law as encompassing the entire OPT, including East Jerusalem. The story was corrected to reflect that the area only covers the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.