UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Tor Wennesland, addressed the United Nations Security Council during a meeting on the Middle East and Palestine situation at the UN headquarters in New York on May 29, 2024. — Reuters
The UN's special coordinator for Middle East peace cautioned on Tuesday that the region had reached its "most perilous point" in decades, as the conflict between Israel and Iran-backed groups threatened to escalate into a wider war. "We are now in the second year of this devastating conflict, and the region is teetering on the brink of another severe escalation," Tor Wennesland informed the Security Council. His comments followed Israel's recent air strikes on military sites in Iran in response to Tehran's October 1 missile attack, which was itself a retaliation for the killing of Iran-backed militant leaders and a Revolutionary Guards commander.
"Every effort — by all of us — must be made to de-escalate the situation and establish a different path towards greater peace and stability in the region," he urged. More than a year after Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel triggered the devastating war in Gaza, which has since spread to Lebanon, the violence "shows no signs of subsiding," Wennesland noted. "We are not only witnessing a horrific humanitarian crisis, but also a rapidly accelerating unraveling of the prospects for a sustainable resolution to this conflict." He recounted his recent visit to Gaza, where he observed "the immense scale of the destruction this war has wrought on the population."
"I witnessed the extensive damage — to residential buildings, roads, hospitals, and schools. I saw thousands living in makeshift tents, with nowhere else to go as winter approaches." Israel's retaliatory offensive has resulted in the deaths of at least 43,020 Palestinians in Gaza, the majority of whom were civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, which the United Nations deems reliable, prompting concerns of a humanitarian disaster. During the October 7 attack, Palestinian militants took 251 hostages, including soldiers and civilians, of whom 97 remain in Gaza. The Israeli military reports that 34 of them are deceased. The attack led to the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
In Lebanon, according to an AFP tally based on official figures, at least 1,700 people have been killed since September 23, when the fighting intensified as Israel launched an air and ground offensive against Hezbollah, which had been conducting rocket attacks in support of Hamas.
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