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NEW YORK: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday called for “irreversible progress” toward a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, warning that failure to act risks perpetuating an “intolerable” and worsening crisis.

Speaking at the High-Level International Conference for Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine at the UN General Assembly Hall, he said the decades-long conflict had reached a “morally, legally and politically intolerable” point, citing mounting civilian casualties in Gaza and growing instability in the West Bank.

“We are here today to help navigate the only way out of this nightmare,” Guterres added, emphasizing the UN-backed vision of two independent, sovereign and democratic states — Israel and Palestine — coexisting peacefully within secure and recognized borders based on the pre-1967 lines, with Jerusalem as the shared capital.

The event was co-hosted by France and ������Ƶ, and marked the most concerted international push in recent months to revive momentum toward a negotiated peace.

Guterres thanked both governments for convening the meeting, and reiterated his disappointment that the Palestinian delegation had been “denied the opportunity (by US visa restrictions) to be fully represented.”

He again condemned the Hamas attack against Israel of Oct. 7, 2023 — calling it “horrific” and reiterating demands for the “immediate and unconditional” release of hostages — and the “systematic decimation” of Gaza in response.

“Nothing can justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people or any form of ethnic cleansing,” he said, decrying the widespread killing of civilians, starvation of the population and attacks on humanitarian workers. “All of it must stop.”

Guterres also warned that continued Israeli settlement expansion, settler violence, and the de facto annexation of the West Bank pose an “existential threat” to any viable two-state outcome.

“Statehood for the Palestinians is a right, not a reward,” he said. “Denying statehood would be a gift to extremists everywhere.”

He added: “This conference must be a catalyst. It must spur irreversible progress towards ending the unlawful occupation and realizing our shared aspiration for a viable two-state solution.”

Guterres urged all parties to demonstrate “bold and principled leadership,” noting that the alternative — a one-state reality marked by occupation and inequality — is neither sustainable nor acceptable.

“Without two states, there will be no peace in the Middle East,” he warned. “And radicalism will spread around the world.”

The conference comes amid deepening international concern over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israel, most of them women and children.

Guterres welcomed recent moves by member states to recognize Palestinian statehood and the UNGA’s endorsement of the Saudi-French New York Declaration, which calls for concrete steps toward a negotiated peace.

“This is the only credible path to a just and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians — and to wider peace and security in the Middle East,” he said.

CAIRO: At least 11 children were killed in a drone strike that hit a mosque in the besieged city of El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, the UN children’s agency said on Monday.
Local aid groups, activists, and the Sudanese army accused the Rapid Support Forces of launching the drone that struck the mosque during Fajr prayers early on Friday, killing at least 70 people.
UNICEF’s Executive Director Catherine Russell, in the Monday statement, called the attack “shocking and unconscionable.” 
Russell said initial reports indicated that at least 11 children between the ages of 6 and 15 were killed and “many more” were injured in the attack, which also damaged nearby homes.
The strike in the besieged city of El-Fasher destroyed the mosque, and many bodies were trapped under rubble, said a worker with the local aid group Emergency Response Rooms on Friday. 
The strike comes as the army and the RSF are fighting increasingly intense battles as part of the country’s ongoing civil war. 
The war has killed at least 40,000 people, according to the World Health Organization, displaced as many as 12 million others, and pushed many to the brink of famine.
Three doctors also died in the attack, according to the Preliminary Committee of Sudan’s Doctors Trade Union and Sudan Doctors Network. 
They were among 231 medical personnel killed since the war in Sudan broke out, according to Sudan Doctors Network.
“The latest attack has torn apart families and shattered any sense of safety for children who have already suffered so much,” said Russell, adding that the RSF’s siege of El-Fasher has trapped children who endure violence and have little access to food, clean water, and health care while being “forced to witness horrors no child should ever see.”
Antoine Gerard, Sudan deputy humanitarian coordinator with the UN, said on Monday that they were seeing more attacks on civilians now inside El-Fasher, who are also struggling to seek safety outside the city due to the siege and lack of safe routes.
“We are quite concerned about targeting civilians, targeting the population and particularly hospitals, mosques and schools, and any other civilian premises,” he said.
In a statement on Sunday, Egypt condemned the drone strike on the mosque. 
It said the attack “constitutes a blatant violation of international humanitarian law, denouncing the targeting of places of worship and innocent civilians in the conflict.”
Fighting over the control of El-Fasher and surrounding areas in North Darfur intensified by early April, and more than 400 civilians have been killed in RSF attacks in the region since April 10, according to a Friday report by the UN’s human rights office. 
The majority were killed in a major offensive that seized the nearby Zamzam displacement camp. 
The camp was turned into an RSF military base used to launch assaults on El-Fasher, according to the report.