The Secretary General of the UN, António Guterres, made an exceptional call this Wednesday to the president of the Security Council to "press to avoid a human catastrophe" in Gaza, in addition to repeating his call for a humanitarian ceasefire, according to the Efe agency.
It is the first time since his mandate began in 2017 that Guterres has invoked Article 99 of the UN founding charter, which states that the Secretary-General "may draw the attention of the Council to any matter that in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of peace and security in the world".
Guterres has assured that he made this decision "given the magnitude of the loss of human life in Israel in such a short period of time", in reference to the two months of war that have passed today since Hamas launched several surprise attacks on October 7. Israel killed 1,200 people and took 200 hostages.
More than 16,200 people have died and some 7,000 are under rubble since the war began two months ago in Gaza, according to the Ministry of Health in the strip.
This same Wednesday, the World Food Program warned that the distribution of food to Gazans "has become almost impossible, putting the lives of humanitarian workers at risk."
In these two months, the Security Council has met on several occasions to discuss the issue of the Gaza war, finding itself handcuffed by the crossed vetoes of the United States or Russia with China, and only on November 15 was the Council able to agree on a call to declare "humanitarian pauses" in the fighting - not a ceasefire - which has not translated into anything concrete.
Guterres' constant calls for a ceasefire have led him to a bitter confrontation with Israel, whose Foreign Minister, Eli Cohen, has even called for his resignation.
In addition, the Israeli government has questioned the work of several UN agencies such as Unicef, UN Women or the UN agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) itself.
Israel has refused to declare a ceasefire, arguing that it would only contribute to rearming and strengthening Hamas, when what it is trying to do with its bombings on Gaza is the eradication of Hamas.
