THE UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres condemned Israel today for the “heartbreaking” deaths of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and called it unacceptable to resist the demand for statehood for the Palestinian people.

“Israel’s military operations have caused mass destruction and killed civilians on an unprecedented scale during my tenure as secretary-general,” Guterres said at the opening of the meeting. G77+China Summit in Kampala, the capital of Uganda.

“This is heartbreaking and completely unacceptable. The Middle East is a minefield, we must do everything to prevent the possibility of a flare-up of conflict throughout the region.”

Antonio Guterres added that the refusal to accept the two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians is completely unacceptable, stressing that denying Palestinians the right to statehood “will prolong indefinitely a conflict that has evolved into a huge threat to world peace and security”.

THE Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu appeared on Saturday to push back against the US president’s remarks Joe Biden on the statehood of the Palestinians after the end of the war with Hamas. His office said that in talks Friday with Biden, Netanyahu “reiterated his policy that after Hamas is eliminated, Israel must maintain security control in Gaza to ensure that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel, a condition that contradicts the demand for Palestinian national sovereignty.”

The UN Secretary General is in Kampala to attend the G77+China and Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit. Leaders and senior officials from dozens of countries including South Africa, Iran, China, Turkey, Cuba, India, Vietnam and others attend the meetings.

The G77+China is a group of 134 developing countries that supports the common interests of the countries of the South.

A document published late last night, at the end of the NAM session, included the condemnation of “the illegal Israeli military aggression in the Gaza Strip, the indiscriminate attacks against Palestinian civilians, political targets, the forced displacement of the Palestinian people” and called for the implementation of an immediate and permanent humanitarian cessation of hostilities.