(United Nations) António Guterres said Monday that the UN had offered to monitor any ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and demanded an end to the worst death toll and destruction he has seen in more than seven years in office.
The secretary-general said in an interview with The Associated Press that it was unrealistic to think the U.N. could play a role in the future of the Gaza Strip, either by administering the territory or providing a peacekeeping force, because Israel was unlikely to accept a U.N. role.
Mr. Gutteres, however, indicated that “the UN will be available to support any ceasefire.” Since 1948, the UN has had a military monitoring mission in the Middle East, known as UNTSO.
“For our part, this was one of the hypotheses that we put on the table,” noted António Guterres.
“Of course, we will be ready to do whatever the international community asks of us,” he said. “The question is whether the parties would accept it, and particularly whether Israel would accept it.”
Israel’s military assault on the Gaza Strip, triggered by Hamas attacks in southern Israel on October 7, has lasted 11 months, with recent ceasefire talks inconclusive and violence in the West Bank reaching new heights.
Stressing the urgency of an immediate ceasefire, Mr. Guterres said: “The level of suffering we are witnessing in Gaza is unprecedented in my tenure as Secretary-General of the United Nations. I have never seen such a level of death and destruction as we are seeing in Gaza in recent months.”
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, the war has killed more than 40,900 Palestinians. The toll does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The war has caused widespread destruction and displaced, often multiple times, about 90 percent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government have accused the UN of being anti-Israeli and have sharply criticized the UN’s humanitarian operations in the Gaza Strip. Faced with protests at home and growing urgency from allies, Netanyahu has rebuffed pressure for a ceasefire deal and said “no one is going to lecture me.”
Beyond a ceasefire, Mr. Guterres stressed that a two-state solution to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not only viable, but “it is the only solution.”
The United States and other countries support the creation of a Palestinian state, but Mr Netanyahu, who leads the most conservative government in Israel’s history, has opposed calls for a two-state solution.
Mr Guterres asked rhetorically whether the alternative was viable.
“That means you have 5 million Palestinians living there without any right to a state,” he said. “Is that possible? Can we accept an idea similar to the one 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, particularly black people.
“I don’t think two peoples can live together if they are not on the basis of equality and if they are not on the basis of mutual respect for their rights,” Mr. Guterres said. “So the two-state solution is, in my view, a necessity if we want to achieve peace in the Middle East.”