SG UNSR
NEW YORK, September 27, 2024 (WAFA) – The United Nations Security Council Friday evening met on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian Question.
As part of his briefing before the UNSC, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres reiterated his call for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and for ending the occupation as a prelude to the establishment of the Palestinian state.
“The international community must mobilise for an immediate ceasefire and the beginning of an irreversible process towards the end of the occupation and the creation of a Palestinian State,” he said.
Gaza remains the epicentre of the violence and the key to ending the fighting which threatens a regional war, the UN chief said, as reported by the UN news website.
He pledged that the UN would continue to support all efforts towards sustainable peace, starting with ending the “death spiral” in the Gaza Strip.
He added that despite being the most dangerous place in the world to be a humanitarian, the recent polio vaccination campaign showed what agencies can do when they are allowed to carry out their work.
“But, crossing points into Gaza remain restricted or inaccessible. Roads are damaged and littered with unexploded ordnance,” while 87 per cent of movements between north and south have been denied, Guterres added.
He condemned once again Israeli attacks on UN personnel and restrictions on UN operations in the war-torn Strip.
“Attacks on humanitarians are an unacceptable assault on the values of the United Nations and must stop,” he declared, urging Israeli occupation authorities to do “everything in their power to end attacks on UN personnel and property, to stop spreading disinformation against UN officials and entities and to speed up the approval of visas and procurement requests”.
The unprecedented scale of destruction and suffering in Gaza has left international humanitarian law in tatters and the whole humanitarian system “hanging by a thread”, Guterres added.
“And let’s be clear, violations by one side cannot be used to justify violations by the other,” he told the Council.
He called for full investigations and accountability for the killing of 225 UN humanitarians – so far – since the onset of the Israeli genocidal aggression on the Gaza Strip on 7 October.
He also highlighted the deaths of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank as “new settlements, landgrabs, demolitions and settler violence all continue.”
“The Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is unlawful, and Israel has an obligation to end it as rapidly as possible,” Guterres said.
The entire region could now be pushed into the abyss: a full-scale conflagration with unimaginable consequences, he added.
K.F.
Source: english.wafa.ps
