NEW YORK CITY: More than 37,000 Palestinians were displaced in the occupied West Bank during 2025, a year in which there were also record-high levels of violence committed by Israeli settlers, UN secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The situation on the ground was rapidly eroding the prospects for a two-state solution, he warned.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe enter 2026 with the clock ticking louder than ever,\u201d Guterres told the opening session of the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. <\/p>\n
\u201cWill the year ahead bend towards peace or slip into the abyss of despair?\u201d<\/p>\n
Illegal settlement expansions, demolitions, displacements and evictions in the West Bank were accelerating, said Guterres, who described the Israeli actions as destabilizing in nature and unlawful under international law.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe recently published tender by Israel for 3,401 housing units in the E1 area (of the West Bank), alongside continued demolitions, is profoundly alarming,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf carried forward, it would sever the northern and southern West Bank, undermine territorial contiguity, and strike a severe blow to the viability of a two-state solution.\u201d<\/p>\n
Turning to the situation in Gaza, Guterres said Palestinians there continued to endure \u201cgrave suffering.\u201d More than 500 have been killed since the truce between Israel and Hamas in October, he noted.<\/p>\n
\u201cI urge all parties to implement the (ceasefire) agreement in full, exercise maximum restraint, and comply with international law and UN resolutions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He called for the rapid and unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid at scale, including through the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt, which Israel reopened on Monday.<\/p>\n
Guterres criticized Israeli authorities for the continued suspension of international non-governmental organizations that provide aid, which he said \u201cdefies humanitarian principles, undermines fragile progress, and worsens the suffering of civilians.\u201d<\/p>\n
Regarding the future of Gaza, he said any sustainable solution must include governance of the territory and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, by a unified and internationally recognized Palestinian government.<\/p>\n
\u201cGaza is and must remain an integral part of a Palestinian state,\u201d Guterres added.<\/p>\n
He also reaffirmed his support for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, and condemned recent Israeli legislation and other actions he said impeded the ability of the agency to operate, including moves to demolish its Sheikh Jarrah compound in occupied East Jerusalem.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet me be clear: UNRWA premises are United Nations premises,\u201d he said. \u201cThey are inviolable and immune from any form of interference.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guterres described public threats against UNRWA staff as \u201cutterly abhorrent,\u201d and said Israel was obliged under international law to respect the privileges and immunities of the UN.<\/p>\n
He also reiterated that an end to Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory was essential.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is only one viable route (to peace): the two-state solution, in line with international law and relevant United Nations resolutions,\u201d he said, as he called on the international community to act \u201cwith clarity, unity and determination\u201d on the issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEW YORK CITY: More than 37,000 Palestinians were displaced in the occupied West Bank during 2025, a year in which there were also record-high levels of violence committed by Israeli settlers, UN secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Tuesday. The situation on the ground was rapidly eroding the prospects for a two-state solution, he warned. \u201cWe …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":93223,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93200"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93224,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93200\/revisions\/93224"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}