UNITED NATIONS — UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Tuesday that international support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must move beyond words, warning that developments in the occupied Palestinian territories are rapidly undermining prospects for a viable Palestinian state.
“For Palestinians and all those who care about peace in the Middle East, support for two states must go beyond words,” Guterres told a high-level ministerial meeting on the Two-State Solution and the Comprehensive Peace Plan for Gaza on the sidelines of the 81st UN General Assembly.
Guterres said that while diplomatic support for a two-state solution has expanded, developments across the occupied West Bank and Gaza are eroding the conditions needed to achieve it.
“The conditions for an independent, democratic, contiguous, viable and sovereign Palestinian State are being systematically erased,” he said, citing Israeli measures and settler violence in the occupied West Bank.
Guterres said the expansion of Israeli settlements violates international law and raised particular concern over planned construction in the strategic E1 area of the occupied West Bank.
Advancing those plans “would deal a deathblow to the prospect of a contiguous and viable Palestinian State,” he warned.
The UN chief reiterated that lasting peace requires Israel and an independent Palestinian state to live side by side within secure and recognized borders based on the pre-1967 lines, with Jerusalem serving as the capital of both states.
“There is simply no alternative, and time is running out,” Guterres said, stressing that achieving a two-state solution remains central to wider regional peace and stability.
European Council President Antonio Costa, also addressing the meeting, said that despite broad international support for a two-state solution, progress on the ground had stalled.
Costa cited the backing of 142 countries for the New York Declaration on the Two-State Solution and UN Security Council Resolution 2803, while noting that conditions on the ground had changed little over the past year.
He called for the international roadmap for Gaza to be implemented without delay and warned that prospects for a two-state solution remained under pressure in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Costa said urgent collective action was needed to preserve a pathway toward an independent and sovereign Palestinian state living alongside Israel in peace and security.
Source: Saudi Gazette