Syria's permanent representative to the United Nations, Ibrahim Olabi, told the Security Council that Israel remained the principal obstacle to stability in his country, citing continued military activity and the refusal to withdraw from territory seized in Syria.
Olabi delivered the criticism during a session devoted to Syria's political and humanitarian transition. He welcomed the recent memorandum between Washington and Tehran aimed at reducing regional tensions, but argued that Israeli policy continued to undermine prospects for wider de-escalation.
The Syrian envoy also renewed the authorities' commitment to transitional justice. He highlighted the confirmed deaths of former national chess champion Rania Al-Abbasi, her husband and their six children after 13 years of uncertainty, and said the government would continue efforts to determine the fate of those who disappeared under the former Assad system.
Olabi listed several areas of progress, including the detention of about 6,000 former regime members, a legal route to citizenship for eligible Kurds, new energy investment initiatives, the return of more than 3.5 million refugees and displaced people, and continued operations against Daesh and cross-border arms trafficking.
UN Deputy Special Envoy Claudio Cordone described the transition as being at a critical stage, with opportunity and fragility existing side by side. He said Israeli forces maintained an almost daily presence in southern Syria and carried out incursions that violated the 1974 disengagement agreement.
Cordone also pointed to delays in forming the transitional People's Assembly, continuing demands for accountability over civil-war crimes and uneven progress in integrating the Syrian Democratic Forces. He said there had been no advance on the roadmap for Sweida, where distrust and calls for separation continued to threaten national unity.
Humanitarian conditions remained severe. The UN said about 1.6 million refugees and nearly 2 million internally displaced people had returned since December 2024, but the country's $2.92 billion humanitarian appeal was only 20 percent funded at midyear. Flooding along the Euphrates had affected more than 17,600 people, while large parts of Quneitra and Sweida continued to require emergency assistance.
