NEW YORK, (The Palestinian Information Center) UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres has urged the world not to be “intimidated” by Israel and its creeping annexation of the occupied West Bank.
Guterres made the remarks on Friday in an interview conducted by the French news agency AFP ahead of the UN’s signature high-level week at which 10 countries will recognize a Palestinian state.
Israel has reportedly threatened to annex the West Bank if Western countries press ahead with the Palestine recognition plan at the UN gathering. But Guterres said, “We should not feel intimidated by the risk of retaliation.”
“With or without doing what we are doing, these [Israeli] actions would go on and at least there is a chance to mobilize international community to put pressure for them not to happen,” he said.
“What we are witnessing in Gaza is horrendous,” Guterres said as Israel threatened “unprecedented force” in its ongoing large-scale attack on Gaza City.
“It is the worst level of death and destruction that I’ve seen my time as Secretary-General, probably my life and the suffering of the Palestinian people cannot be described — famine, total lack of effective health care, people living without adequate shelters in huge concentration areas,” he added.
