UN’s Antonio Guterres urges Security Council to act on the war in Gaza

The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has invoked Article 99 of the UN Charter, urging the UN Security Council to act on the war in Gaza.

In a rare move on Wednesday, he warned the Security Council of the global threat from the Gaza war. The 15-member Security Council is yet to adopt a resolution calling for a ceasefire between Israel, Hamas and their allies.

Article 99 allows the secretary-general to “bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security”.

In his letter to the council’s president, Guterres invoked this responsibility, saying he believed the situation in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, “may aggravate existing threats to the maintenance of international peace and security”.

Guterres – who has been calling for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” since October 18 – also described “appalling human suffering, physical destruction and collective trauma across Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories”.

Article 99 is a special power – and the only independent political tool given to the secretary-general in the UN Charter – that allows him to call a meeting of the Security Council on his own initiative to issue warnings about new threats to international peace and security, and matters that are not yet on the council’s agenda.

In response to Guterres’s letter, Security Council member the United Arab Emirates posted on X to say it had submitted a new draft resolution to the council, and “called for a humanitarian ceasefire resolution to be adopted urgently”.

It warned that the situation in Gaza is catastrophic and close to irreversible, adding: “We cannot wait.”

In reply to Guterres’ move, Israel’s foreign minister accused him of supporting Hamas, calling for his resignation and said his tenure as head of the world body was “a danger to world peace.

Eli Cohen said Guterres’ call for a ceasefire in the two-month war in Gaza, sparked by Hamas’s October 7 atrocities in southern Israel, “constitutes support” for the Palestinian terror organization and was “an endorsement of the murder of the elderly, the abduction of babies, and the rape of women.”