UN’s Guterres says Gaza war, Iran’s attack on Israel could devolve into ‘full-scale regional conflict’

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres paints a dark picture of the situation in the Middle East, warning that spiraling tensions over the war in Gaza and Iran’s attack on Israel could devolve into a “full-scale regional conflict.”

Guterres also says that the war in Gaza, sparked by Hamas’s October 7 massacre in southern Israel, has created a “humanitarian hellscape” for civilians trapped in the coastal enclave.

“The Middle East is on a precipice. Recent days have seen a perilous escalation — in words and deeds,” Guterres tells a high-level Security Council meeting, with several foreign ministers present, including from Jordan and Iran.

“One miscalculation, one miscommunication, one mistake, could lead to the unthinkable — a full-scale regional conflict that would be devastating for all involved,” he says, calling on all parties to exercise “maximum restraint.”

Iran launched more than 300 missiles, drones and rockets at Israel over the weekend, saying it was retaliation for an alleged Israeli strike on April 1 on a site in Damascus that Iran said was a consular building, which killed two Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps generals and several other officers. Nearly all of the Iranian projectiles fired at Israel were intercepted, and there was little damage.

Guterres condemns both the consulate attack and the flurry of drones, saying that the latter constituted a “serious escalation.”

“It is high time to end the bloody cycle of retaliation,” he says. “It is high time to stop.”