Guterres made his appeal at a time of mounting civilian casualties from the Israeli bombardment of northern Israel. A strike on Tuesday in Beit Lahiya left at least 93 dead, in what the UN said was one of at least seven "mass casualty incidents" across Gaza over the past week.
At the same time, aid deliveries to Gaza are reported to have fallen to their lowest level since the start of the war, leading to growing allegations that Israel's true intention is to drive the remaining Palestinian population out of at least part of Gaza.
Guterres, speaking on the sidelines of the Cop16 biodiversity conference in Cali, Colombia, suggested that the "ethnic cleansing" of Gaza had been prevented until now by the refusal of its people to succumb to the intense pressure to flee their homes and by Arab resolve not to accept mass population transfers.
"The intention might be for the Palestinians to leave Gaza, for others to occupy it," Guterres said. "But there has been - and I pay tribute to the courage and the resilience of the Palestinian people and to the determination of the Arab world - [an effort] to avoid the ethnic cleansing becoming a reality.
This story is from the October 31, 2024 edition of The Guardian.
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This story is from the October 31, 2024 edition of The Guardian.
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