Guterres: Unrealistic to think UN could play role in postwar Gaza

'I’ve never seen such a level of death and destruction as we are seeing in Gaza in the last few months,' Antonio Guterres says

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in New York on September 9. AP

Live updates: Follow the latest on Israel-Gaza

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Monday dismissed the notion that the world body would take a direct role in Gaza's future.

It would be “unrealistic” for the UN to administer the enclave or send a peacekeeping force there, as Israel is unlikely to accept either, Mr Guterres told AP before the UN General Assembly this month. But he said “the UN will be available to support any ceasefire".

The UN has maintained a military monitoring presence in the Middle East since 1948, through its Truce Supervision Organisation mission. Mr Guterres said expanding this role was one of the options the UN had put forward.

“Of course, we’ll be ready to do whatever the international community asked of us,” he said. “The question is whether the parties would accept it, and, in particular, whether Israel would accept it.”

He said the need for a ceasefire was urgent: “The level of suffering we are witnessing in Gaza is unprecedented in my mandate as Secretary General of the United Nations. I’ve never seen such a level of death and destruction as we are seeing in Gaza in the last few months.”

Israel’s military assault on Gaza, started by Hamas's attacks in southern Israel on October 7 that killed 1,200 people, has dragged on for 11 months, with recent ceasefire talks failing and violence in the West Bank soaring.

The war has killed more than 40,900 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. It has caused vast destruction and displaced about 90 per cent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government have repeatedly accused the UN of bias, voicing strong criticism of its humanitarian operations in Gaza.

Mr Guterres stressed that, beyond achieving a ceasefire, the two-state solution remains the only resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

“It's not just viable, it's the only solution," he said. “I do not think you can have two peoples living together if they are not in a basis of equality, and if they are not in a basis of respect, mutual respect of their rights.

"So the two-state solution is, in my opinion, a must if we want to have peace in the Middle East.”