UN Chief Says US Must Do More to 'Force Israel to Stop' Gaza Onslaught

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres this week urged the United States to pressure Israel into stopping its assault on Gaza, which over the course of 343 days has left more than 146,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, even as he acknowledged the low likelihood of the Biden administration heeding his call.

In a yet-to-be-published interview with Al Jazeera, Guterres said that "we have urged Washington to take a stronger stance against Israel to end the war," and that "the U.S. needs to apply pressure to force Israel to stop."

"I have no power to stop the war," the U.N. chief admitted, according to a partial interview transcript. "We have a voice, and that voice has been loud and clear to say from the beginning this war must stop. The suffering of the Palestinian people must stop and the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people must be recognized."

Noting that the U.N. Security Council has "systematically failed"—mainly due to U.S. vetoes of cease-fire resolutions—to end the war on Gaza, Guterres lamented "a situation in which any country or any movement anywhere in the world feels that they can do whatever they want because there will be no punishment."

The U.N. chief turned his attention to the recent advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice (ICJ)—a U.N. organ where Israel is on trial for genocide—that the 57-year Israeli occupation of Palestine is an illegal form of apartheid that must immediately end.

"We must absolutely reject any prospective annexation of West Bank or the land grabbing or the illegal settlements that move on," he said. "The West Bank together with Gaza and East Jerusalem, which is part of the West Bank, must be the state of Palestine in the future."

The far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pushing ahead with plans to steal more West Bank land from Palestinians and build or expand Jewish-only settler colonies there. This, as pogroms and other deadly attacks by Israeli extremists and soldiers—who often stand by or even join rampaging settlers—have claimed more than 600 lives in the West Bank, including more than 140 children, since October.

Guterres stressed the importance of achieving a cease-fire agreement and an independent Palestinian state—a policy supported by the vast majority of the world's nations—even as he expressed skepticism about the prospects for peace.

"I know the American political life sufficiently to know that it will not happen," he said of the chances that the U.S. will pressure Israel into a cease-fire.

Guterres' remarks came as U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said the world body has "no evidence" that Hamas militants were operating at a U.N.-run school-turned shelter that was bombed earlier this week by Israeli forces. The twin airstrikes killed at least 18 people including women, children, and half a dozen staffers with the U.N.'s Palestinian refugee agency.

The agency says around 200 of its staff members have been killed in more than 450 Israeli attacks on its facilities since October. More than 500 Palestinians have been killed while seeking shelter under the U.N. flag.