United Nations director-general Antonio Guterres, has faulted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rejection of the two-state solution to settle the land between Palestinians and Israelis.
The US President, Joe Biden has repeatedly stressed the need for a two-state solution, but Netanyahu said Israel was not ready to negotiate on such a proposal.
“There are a number of types of two-state solutions,” Biden told reporters after a call with Netanyahu. “There’s a number of countries that are members of the U.N. that still — don’t have their own military; a number of states that have limitations, and so I think there’s ways in which this can work.”
In his remarks, Guterres said that the denial of the right to full statehood for Palestine, which is already recognized as a nation by most countries around the world, is “unacceptable.”
“The right of the Palestinian people to build their own state must be recognized by all,” Guterres said.
Meanwhile the Palestinian death toll in Gaza from over three months of war between Israel and the territory’s Hamas rulers has soared past 25,000, the Gaza Health Ministry said.
Women and children are the main victims in the Israel-Hamas war, according to the United Nations.
The war began with Hamas’ surprise attack into Israel on October 7, in which militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took around 250 hostage, including men, women and children.
Israel responded with a three-week air campaign and then a ground invasion into northern Gaza that flattened entire neighbourhoods.
Ground operations are now focused on the southern city of Khan Younis and built-up refugee camps in central Gaza dating back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation.
Some 85% of Gaza’s population have fled their homes, with hundreds of thousands packing into UN-run shelters and tent camps in the southern part of the tiny coastal enclave.
UN officials say a quarter of the population of 2.3 million is starving as only a trickle of humanitarian aid enters because of the fighting and Israeli restrictions.
