Progress report of the Board of the United Nations Register of Damage Caused by the Construction of the Wall in OPT- UNROD Report (A/ES-10/949)

August 29, 2023

Tenth emergency special session

Agenda item 5

Illegal Israeli actions in Occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory

Letter dated 26 May 2023 from the Secretary-General addressed to the President of the General Assembly

           In accordance with paragraph 6 (h) of General Assembly resolution ES-10/17, I have the honour to transmit herewith the progress report, dated 16 May 2023, from the Board of the United Nations Register of Damage Caused by the Construction of the Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (see annex).

           I would be grateful if you could bring the present letter and its annex to the attention of the members of the General Assembly.

(Signed) António Guterres

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Annex

Letter dated 16 May 2023 from the members of the Board of the United Nations Register of Damage Caused by the Construction of the Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory addressed to the Secretary-General

We have the honour to provide the progress report of the Board of the United Nations Register of Damage Caused by the Construction of the Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory for transmission to the General Assembly in accordance with paragraph 6 (h) of Assembly resolution ES-10/17 (see enclosure).

We request that the progress report be issued as a document of the General Assembly. Our 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 progress reports were issued as documents A/ES-10/455, A/ES-10/498, A/ES-10/522, A/ES-10/598, A/ES-10/599, A/ES-10/658, A/ES-10/683, A/ES-10/730, A/ES-10/756, A/ES-10/801, A/ES-10/821 and A/ES-10/839, respectively.

(Signed) Vladimir Goryayev

Member of the Board

(Signed) Mariana Salazar Albornoz

Member of the Board

(Signed) Jeremy K. Sharpe

Member of the Board

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Enclosure

Progress report of the Board of the United Nations Register of Damage Caused by the Construction of the Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory

1. The Board of the United Nations Register of Damage Caused by the Construction of the Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory provides the present progress report in accordance with paragraph 6 (h) of General Assembly resolution ES-10/17, covering the period from 2 July 2020 to 16 May 2023. The 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 progress reports of the Board are contained in documents A/ES-10/455, A/ES-10/498, A/ES-10/522, A/ES-10/598, A/ES-10/599, A/ES-10/658, A/ES-10/683, A/ES-10/730, A/ES-10/756, A/ES-10/801, A/ES-10/821 and A/ES-10/839, respectively. Board progress reports, as well as other basic documents pertinent to the work of the Register of Damage, are posted on the website of the Register (www.unrod.org).
2. Pursuant to the relevant provisions of resolution ES-10/17, on 7 October 2022 the Secretary-General appointed the signatories of the present report, in their personal capacity, as members of the Board (A/ES-10/915), following the resignation of the previous Board members in May 2021. On 1 July 2021, Leonid Frolov was appointed by the Secretary-General as Executive Director of the Office of the Register of Damage and ex officio member of the Board. As current members of the Board, we would like to pay due tribute and express our appreciation for the diligent and highly professional work that was done by our predecessors for many years.
3. During the reporting period, the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic seriously affected the operations of the Register of Damage in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and caused various delays in fulfilling its mandate of collecting, processing and reviewing claims.
4. During the reporting period, the Register of Damage continued to undertake activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory to collect, process and review claim forms for inclusion in the Register in accordance with its Rules and Regulations Governing the Registration of Claims. Since its launch in 2008, the community outreach and claim intake campaign has been conducted in all nine affected governorates: Janin, Tubas, Tulkarm, Qalqilyah, Salfit, Ramallah, Hebron, Bethlehem and Jerusalem, which comprise a population of more than 1.3 million inhabitants. Outreach activities were conducted in 10 municipalities, including by telephone and videoconference.
5. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Office of the Register of Damage conducted one to two training sessions a year for local mayors and other officials of affected communities in order to inform them of the requirements for filling in claim forms and preparing the forms for the claim intake relating to the damage caused to their communities. The trainings planned for the reporting period had to be postponed owing to the COVID-19 pandemic and insufficient extrabudgetary funds for organizing meetings. The Office of the Register of Damage conducted a virtual training session in October 2020 with the mayor and local council officials of Biddu municipality in the Governorate of Jerusalem, which was focused on the legal and organizational aspects of claim intake for category F (public resources and other) losses. The next in-person training is planned for late 2023.
6. As at 16 May 2023, 73,235 claims had been collected in 269 of the 299 affected communities where the construction of the wall is completed and/or is under construction, of which 1,688 claims were collected during the reporting period. That total also includes the collection of five category F claims from Salfit, Ramallah and Janin Governorates. Claim intake activities had to be paused from April 2022 to May 2023 owing to the unavailability of extrabudgetary funds. The members of the Board expressed their hope that the claim intake process would resume promptly, following the receipt of extrabudgetary funds from the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, and drew attention to the need to prioritize fund-raising so as to ensure an uninterrupted resumption of claim intake. In this regard, members of the Board appeal to previous donors and to potential future donors to provide funding assistance to the Register of Damage for outreach and claim intake activities, including in the 30 remaining affected communities.
7. Members of the Board commend the staff of the Register of Damage for their dedicated and creative solutions that allowed for the uninterrupted processing of claims, notwithstanding restrictions related to the pandemic. Solutions included the creation of a secure and confidential offline system that allowed the staff of the Office to process certain claims remotely during the lockdown, as a business continuity measure. As a result, the Office was able to translate and process 9,000 claims. The considerable gap between the number of claim forms collected and the number processed by the Office was thus further narrowed.
8. The General Assembly, in its resolution ES-10/17, decided that the Board of the Register of Damage was to meet at least four times each year at the Office of the Register of Damage, in Vienna, to review and decide on the inclusion of claims into the Register, ensuring that strict confidentiality requirements are met and that the integrity of the process is maintained. Owing to pandemic-related restrictions, however, the previous members of the Board held their meetings through videoconferences with the Secretariat, on 16 December 2020 and on 10 March 2021, to discuss various matters relating to the activities of the Register.
9. The current members of the Board held two meetings in Vienna, from 7 to 15 March 2023 and from 8 to 16 May 2023, to review claims that had been processed by the Office. During those meetings, the Board familiarized itself with the review processes, the database and the electronic Register. During the meeting held in March, the Board reviewed and decided on 1,854 claims and during the meeting held in May, it decided on 1,911 claims. It decided to include in the Register 3,752 claims and not to include 13 claims that did not meet the eligibility criteria set in the Rules and Regulations. All claims reviewed and decided on by the Board during the reporting period belonged to category A (agriculture) losses in relation to grazing claims.
10. As a result, since the inception of the Register of Damage and as at 16 May 2023, the Board had decided to include in the Register some or all of the losses set out in 39,775 claims and not to include 1,247 claims that did not meet the eligibility criteria, bringing the total number of decided claims to 41,022.
11. In its review of claims, the Board continued to apply the eligibility criteria in accordance with article 11 of the Rules and Regulations. In view of the limited time available and the large number of claims for losses included in claim forms forwarded to the Board by the Executive Director of the Office of the Register, the Board continued to employ sampling techniques as provided for in article 12 (3) of the Rules and Regulations. During the two meetings covered by the present report, Board members reviewed in detail approximately 10 per cent of the claims for losses included in the forms submitted for review. As indicated in the Board report of 2012, the Executive Director consulted a statistician informally concerning the sampling methodology applied by the Board. The level of sampling is within statistical parameters of reliability. Claims that did not meet the eligibility criteria were either excluded from the Register or returned to the claimants for clarification.
12. The Board noted with satisfaction that the Executive Director continued to maintain contacts with senior officials of the Palestinian National Authority and with senior officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel, as well as with senior United Nations representatives on the ground. In November 2021, the Executive Director visited the Occupied Palestinian Territory and had several constructive meetings with senior Palestinian officials including the Prime Minister, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, local governors, heads of village councils and the Palestinian National Committee for the Register of Damage. The Executive Director also had a constructive meeting with Israeli officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He also met with the heads of the United Nations programmes and offices working in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
13. Claim intake activities and a portion of the outreach activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory are funded by extrabudgetary contributions. Such voluntary contributions have been received from the Governments of Algeria, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Brunei Darussalam, Finland, France, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Malta, Morocco, Netherlands (Kingdom of the), Norway, the Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland and Türkiye, as well as the European Commission, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Fund for International Development and the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development. More than $8.7 million has been donated since the establishment of the Register of Damage. Several Governments, as well as the OPEC Fund, have donated to the Register of Damage on at least two occasions.
14. The Board would like to express its deep appreciation to those donors for providing funding and political support to enable the implementation of the provisions of resolution ES-10/17.
15. From August to December 2020, the claim intake activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory were conducted by three claim intakers, and from February 2021 to March 2022 by two. As from May 2023, funding is available until August 2024 for two claim intakers to work in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Additional extrabudgetary funding is required to further advance the implementation of the mandate. The Board continues to stress that, in order to sustain the claim collection programme in the Occupied Palestinian Territory effectively, funding for an additional three-person claim-intake team is required, which would also allow for adequate gender balance in the team.
16. As before, the Board would like to express its appreciation for the indispensable cooperation extended by the Palestinian National Authority and the Palestinian National Committee for the Register of Damage, as well as for the support provided by local governors, mayors and members of village councils on many practical aspects, without which outreach and claim intake activities could not be conducted successfully. As for the Government of Israel, it continues to consider that any claims in relation to damage caused by the construction of the wall should be addressed through the existing Israeli mechanism. On the practical level, during the reporting period, both the Officer-in-Charge and the Executive Director of the Office of the Register of Damage continued to maintain constructive contacts with relevant Israeli authorities, and the Office of the Register of Damage did not experience any problems with access, the delivery of needed materials or the issuance of required visas.
17. The Board of the Register of Damage notes with satisfaction the good cooperation with United Nations agencies and offices present on the ground in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as called for in paragraph 14 of resolution ES-10/17. The Board particularly appreciates the efficient and tangible contribution provided by the United Nations Office for Project Services in the areas of logistics, procurement, human and financial resources, and management in support of the Register of Damage. During the reporting period, the Register of Damage also continued to benefit from the advice and assistance of the Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, the Assistant Secretary-General for the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific and from the cooperation of the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs.
18. The Board expresses its appreciation to the Executive Director and the staff of the Office of the Register of Damage for their diligent and dedicated work in the preparation of the two Board meetings held in 2023, which enabled the Board to take up its functions smoothly and swiftly decide on a large number of claims.
19. The Board of the Register of Damage will continue to provide periodic reports.

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