UN Security Council ‘paralysed’ over Gaza – Guterres

The Security Council’s failure to demand a ceasefire in Gaza due to divisions in the world body is paralysing, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Sunday.

Guterres made his statement at Qatar’s Doha Forum, saying that the council was “paralysed by geostrategic divisions” which cannot put an end to the aggression.

The Council’s “authority and credibility were severely undermined” by its delayed response to the aggression, he added.

This comes two days after a US veto prevented a Gaza ceasefire resolution.

“I reiterated my appeal for a humanitarian ceasefire to be declared,” he told the forum.

“Regrettably, the Security Council failed to do it,” he explained.

“I can promise, I will not give up.”

Guterres assembled an emergency meeting of the Security Council two months after the beginning of the aggression, which left more than 17,700 Palestinian civilians killed in Gaza, most of them women and children.

Guterres deployed Article 99 of the United Nations Charter to bring the council’s attention to “any matter which may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.”

The Article had not been invoked by a UN chief in decades.

“We are facing a severe risk of collapse of the humanitarian system,” Guterres explained.

“The situation is fast deteriorating into a catastrophe with potentially irreversible implications for Palestinians as a whole and for peace and security in the region.”