“The Secretary-General has been working very closely with Qatar, with Egypt, and with the US, in support of their efforts to at least get a ceasefire going,” Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, told Rudaw on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York.
Dujarric said that the UN has “hundreds and hundreds” of humanitarian staff in Gaza, the West Bank, and southern Lebanon, and UN peacekeepers on the ground are hard at work while external powers agree on a political solution.
Risks of a regional spillover from the war in Gaza are higher than ever after Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon on Monday, which killed at least 558 and injured thousands, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
On the Israeli hostages taken by Hamas to Gaza, Dujarric stated that “these people need to go home” immediately.
The conflict between Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, backed by Iran, and Israel has intensified since October 7, when Palestinian Hamas militants launched a large-scale incursion into southern Israel, killing more than 1,170 people, according to Israeli figures. Israel responded with a massive ongoing offensive on Gaza, killing over 41,455 people, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
