NEW YORK (United Nations), 30 December 2025 (APS) – Algeria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Amar Bendjama, has been named "Diplomat of the Year 2025" by the American independent media outlet "PassBlue," based on its annual audience poll of notable UN figures for 2025.

PassBlue underlined, in its article, that Bendjama "especially guarded the Palestinian cause" bluntly describing to his fellow members and to the world, for example, that in Gaza: "What we are witnessing is not war, it is annihilation not only of people but of life itself."

The American media outlet also named the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) as "UN Personality of the Year 2025."

PassBlue wrote: "Swiss diplomat Philippe Lazzarini has headed UNRWA since 2020, steering the agency through its biggest crisis in its 76-year history, placing him as the most public UN advocate for millions of Palestinian refugees," while 309 UNRWA staff members have been killed during the Zionist genocidal war against Gaza.

The aforementioned media outlet noted that reader votes reflect, as they did in 2024, "continued deep concern over the war in Gaza" and that "the winners and runners-up in our informal survey worked hard to mitigate the humanitarian and political disasters unfolding every day in the Middle East."

PassBlue provides in-depth coverage of U.S.-UN relations, women's issues, human rights, peacekeeping, and other global challenges.

The media outlet has a readership in the United States, Canada, and internationally, including London, Geneva, Paris, Berlin, New Delhi, Nairobi, Johannesburg, Australia, and New Zealand.