UN chief calls death and destruction in Gaza the worst he’s seen during tenure
Guterres says global body ready to monitor potential ceasefire but doubts Israel would agree, urges two-state solution to end Israeli-Palestinian conflict
The UN chief said Monday that the United Nations has offered to monitor any ceasefire in Gaza, and demanded an end to the worst death and destruction he has seen in his more than seven-year tenure.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in an interview with The Associated Press that it’s “unrealistic” to think the UN could play a role in Gaza’s future, either by administering the territory or providing a peacekeeping force, because Israel is unlikely to accept a UN role.
But he said, “the UN will be available to support any ceasefire.”
The United Nations has had a military monitoring mission in the Middle East, known as UNTSO, since 1948, and he said, “From our side, this was one of the hypotheses that we’ve put on the table.”
“Of course, we’ll be ready to do whatever the international community asked for us,” Guterres said. “The question is whether the parties would accept it, and in particular, whether Israel would accept it.”
On October 7, the Palestinian terror group Hamas triggered the ongoing war when it sent thousands of terrorists into southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages, while committing many acts of brutality and sexual assault.
Israel’s military response to destroy Hamas in Gaza and free the hostages has stretched for 11 months, with recent ceasefire talks failing to reach a breakthrough, and violence in the West Bank reaching new highs.
Stressing the urgency of a ceasefire now, Guterres said: “The level of suffering we are witnessing in Gaza is unprecedented in my mandate as secretary-general of the United Nations. I’ve never seen such a level of death and destruction as we are seeing in Gaza in the last few months.”
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 40,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 17,000 combatants in battle and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
Israel has also said that it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques. The war has also caused vast destruction and displaced around 90 percent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, often multiple times.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government have accused the UN of being anti-Israel and have been highly critical of UN humanitarian operations in Gaza. Israel has also accused some workers for the UN’s Palestinian refugee aid organization of participating in Hamas’s October 7 atrocities while naming over 100 employees it says are members of Hamas or other terror groups.
Facing protests at home and increasing urgency from allies, Netanyahu has pushed back against pressure for a ceasefire deal and declared that “nobody should preach to me.”
Looking beyond a ceasefire, Guterres stressed that a two-state solution to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not only viable, “it’s the only solution.”
The United States and others support Palestinian statehood, but Netanyahu, who is leading the most conservative government in Israel’s history, has opposed calls for a two-state solution.
Guterres asked rhetorically whether the alternative is viable.
“It means that you have 5 million Palestinians living there without any rights in a state,” he said. “Is it possible? Can we accept an idea similar to what we had in South Africa in the past?”
He was referring to South Africa’s apartheid system from 1948 until the early 1990s, when its minority white population marginalized and segregated people of color, especially Black people.
“I do not think you can have two peoples living together if they are not in a basis of equality, and if they are not in a basis of respect — mutual respect of their rights,” Guterres said. “So the two-state solution is, in my opinion, a must if we want to have peace in the Middle East.”
Israel rejects any allegation of apartheid, saying its own Arab citizens enjoy equal rights. Israel also notes that it granted limited autonomy to the Palestinian Authority at the height of the peace process in the 1990s and withdrew all its soldiers and settlers from Gaza in 2005. The PA then took over the territory but Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007 during a violent coup and has been the de facto regime in the coastal enclave ever since.
