United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Wednesday that the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is at its “most combustible in years” against a backdrop of deadly accelerating surges of violence, “sky high” tensions, and a stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
“Our immediate priority must be to prevent further escalation, reduce tensions, and restore calm,” Guterres said in the presence of Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer for the State of Palestine.
The UN Chief was speaking at a meeting in New York of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, which the General Assembly established in 1975.
The meeting was held hours after the Palestinian Authority said Israeli troops killed 10 Palestinians in a raid on the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, while more than 100 suffered gunshot wounds.
Those killed were aged between 16 and 72, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Wednesday’s death toll is equal to that of an Israeli army raid last month in Jenin, further north, which was the deadliest West Bank operation since at least 2005.
Also at the Committee meeting in New York , the UN Chief called for stopping the Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied territory.
“Each new settlement is another roadblock on the path to peace,” he said, emphasizing that all settlement activity is illegal under international law, and “it must stop”.
At the same time, nothing justifies terrorism, Guterres affirmed.
