Source: United Nations (video statements)
Remarks by António Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General, on advancing political solutions in the Middle East: mediation and dialogue for a lasting peace.
Guterres warned that the Middle East is being pulled deeper into crisis, as this week has brought wider attacks and further deterioration, and said, “a brutal price is being paid by the region’s people, and it is extending to the wider world, particularly the most vulnerable countries and communities.”
Escalation in the Middle East, Guterres said, “reverberates across borders and continents, through political tensions, displacement and rising insecurity, through markets and trade routes, through food and fuel costs.”
In Lebanon, he said, “we have witnessed a serious escalation as Israel intensified its operations in Lebanese territory and Hezbollah fired deeper into Israel.
Guterres said, “we have seen the killing of civilians, entire communities uprooted and extensive demolition of homes and civilian infrastructure in southern Lebanon, the forced displacement of over a million civilians, the killing of seven UN peacekeepers, including one last week. And through it all, the risk and reality of war escalation.”
Gaza, he continued, “still faces profound uncertainty and immense human suffering,” as “violence is on the rise, with civilians killed on a daily basis.”
The Secretary-General said, humanitarian operations “remain heavily constrained, “as “basic human needs for clean water, sanitation, food, shelter, healthcare, and more are going unmet. And the Israeli government is declaring its intent to control 70 percent of the Strip. “
In the West Bank, he said, “reports of settler violence now averaging six attacks per day; the demolition of homes; destruction of farms and confiscation of lands; the relentless expansion of illegal Israeli settlements; the ongoing displacement of Palestinians at levels not seen since 1967; the threat of an attempt of annexation that would, like the decades long occupation, have no legal validity; the risk of making a two-state solution impossible when there is no other viable option. And throughout, the presumption of impunity.”
Guterres said, “civilians and civilian infrastructure have come under attack in multiple countries,” and stressed that “all threats to national sovereignty and territorial integrity are violations to international law.”
At the same time, he said, “restrictions on navigational rights and freedoms in and around the Strait of Hormuz are causing hardship and instability across the world, driving up energy prices and disrupting supply chains, making fertilisers more costly and hunger more prevalent, pushing up inflation and piling on debt, and in fragile states, raising the risk of fresh conflicts.”
Even in the best-case scenario, the Secretary-General said, “these shocks will be felt for many months, with developing countries bearing the heaviest impact,” and called on all parties “to honour the ceasefire and redouble efforts to reach a lasting agreement.”