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STORY: UN / MIDDLE EAST MEDIA SEMINAR
TRT: 3:32
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 01 DECEMBER 2025, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE – NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior, United Nations Headquarters
01 DECEMBER 2025, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, conference room
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Melissa Fleming, Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications, United Nations:
“The rules of war are clear: Civilians and civilian infrastructure are not a target. Journalists must be able to perform their essential work without interference, intimidation or harm. This includes the unacceptable ban that prevents international journalists from accessing Gaza.”
4. Wide shot, conference room
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Melissa Fleming, Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications, United Nations:
“The UN is unwavering in its commitment to the only sustainable solution: a credible, irreversible pathway to ending the occupation and to two States, Israel and Palestine, living side-by-side in peace and security within their secure and recognized borders on the basis of pre 1967-lines, with Jerusalem as the capital of both States, in line with international law, UN resolutions and other relevant agreements. Your work as journalists – bearing witness, reporting the facts – is vital in building the informed global consensus required to realize this goal.”
6. Wide shot, conference room
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations:
“We salute the courageous Palestinian journalists in Gaza in particular who thanks to them this genocide in Gaza has become the most documented in history. We salute their courage and perseverance in the face of death, threats and intimidation. We pray for those who lost their lives, those who got injured and those who remain in Israeli prisons. And we shall not rest until justice is served. And accountability is achieved.”
Wide shot, conference room
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations:
“I appeal to you to also work hard to put pressure on Israel to let foreign press into Gaza. We should ask ourselves why Israel is not allowing foreign aid into Gaza. Don't accept their security pretext. Foreign journalists were allowed in every war zone except Gaza. There has to be an international campaign of foreign press demanding an entry to Gaza. And similarly, this campaign must include journalist mission to document the horrors committed by Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians in Gaza and in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”
9. Wide shot, conference room
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Coly Seck, Permanent Representative of Senegal to the United Nations, Chair of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People:
“I wish to emphasize from the outset that the work of journalists in occupied Palestinian territory is not a luxury. It is indispensable for truth, accountability and for peace. Journalist safety is absolutely essential to press freedom.”
11. Wide shot, conference room
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Coly Seck, Permanent Representative of Senegal to the United Nations, Chair of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People:
“In conclusion, I reaffirm the Committee's unwavering dedication to press freedom and the essential role of journalists in achieving lasting peace in the occupied Palestinian territory.”
13. Wide shot, conference room
The 2025 United Nations International Media Seminar on Peace in the Middle East took place today (01 Dec) in New York. The theme of this year is “Breaking Barriers: Navigating the Dangers and Complexities of Reporting from Gaza and the West Bank.”
The Secretary-General, in a message read by Melissa Fleming, Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications, said that journalists in Gaza have been facing the same risks and realities as the people they cover – including displacement, famine and death. Since the appalling attacks on 7 October, more than 260 media workers have been killed in Gaza and in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, making this the deadliest conflict for journalists in decades, the Secretary-General underscored.
Guterres emphasized that the rules of war are clear: “Civilians and civilian infrastructure are not to be a target. Journalists must be able to perform their essential work without interference, without intimidation and of course without harm. This includes the unacceptable ban that prevents international journalists from actually entering Gaza freely."
The Secretary-General also reiterated that the UN is “unwavering” in its commitment to the “only sustainable solution: a credible, irreversible pathway to ending the occupation and to two States, Israel and Palestine, living side-by-side in peace and security within their secure and recognized borders on the basis of pre 1967-lines, with Jerusalem as the capital of both States, in line with international law, UN resolutions and other relevant agreements.”
“Your work as journalists – bearing witness, reporting the facts – is vital in building the informed global consensus required to realize this goal.” Guterres concluded in his message.
For his part, Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour saluted to the Palestinian journalists for “their courage and perseverance in the face of death, threats and intimidation.”
“We pray for those who lost their lives, those who got injured and those who remain in Israeli prisons. And we shall not rest until justice is served. And accountability is achieved,” Ambassador Mansour added.
He appealed to “put pressure on Israel to let foreign press into Gaza,” adding that “foreign journalists were allowed in every war zone except Gaza.”
For his part, Ambassador ofSenegal Coly Seck who is the Chair of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, emphasized that the work of journalists in occupied Palestinian territory is “not a luxury,” adding “it is indispensable for truth, accountability and for peace. Journalist safety is absolutely essential to press freedom.”
Ambassador Seck reaffirmed the Committee's “unwavering dedication to press freedom and the essential role of journalists in achieving lasting peace in the occupied Palestinian territory.”
