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The U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Monday that the United Nations has offered to help monitor any eventual cease-fire to halt the Israeli-Hamas war in Gaza, but that it is "unrealistic" to think that the world agency would directly administer the territory or provide a peacekeeping force.
Guterres told The Associated Press in an interview, "The U.N. will be available to support any cease-fire," but said he did not believe Israel would accept a broader role for the U.N. As the Israeli-Hamas conflict raged over the last 11 months, Israel accused a small number of U.N. workers of joining Hamas militants in their shock October 7 attack on Israel that started the war.
The United Nations has had a military monitoring mission in the Middle East, known as UNTSO, since 1948. Guterres said that offering to monitor a cease-fire "was one of the hypotheses that we've put on the table." But the months-long cease-fire talks have stalemated.
"Of course, we'll be ready to do whatever the international community asked for us," Guterres said. "The question is whether the parties would accept it, and in particular whether Israel would accept it."
Stressing the urgency of a cease-fire now, Guterres said, "The level of suffering we are witnessing in Gaza is unprecedented in my (seven-year) mandate as secretary-general of the United Nations. I've never seen such a level of death and destruction as we are seeing in Gaza in the last few months."
Separately, U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk said Monday that ending the war in Gaza "and averting a full-blown regional conflict is an absolute and urgent priority."
"We know that wars spill over, and into, future generations, fostering repeated cycles of hatred if their causes remain unaddressed," Türk told a session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva. "Sadly, the war in Gaza is the quintessential example."
Türk highlighted the "horrific" Hamas attack on Israel, the forcible displacement of 1.9 million Palestinians in Gaza, the 101 Israelis still being held hostage in Gaza, and Israel's "deadly and destructive operations" in the West Bank that are "worsening a calamitous situation."
Israel's military reported Monday carrying out overnight attacks against buildings and a launch site used by Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon, the latest in cross-border clashes between the two sides that have raised concerns about a wider regional conflict.
In neighboring Syria, state media said Monday that suspected Israeli airstrikes killed at least 18 people and injured nearly 40 others.
The strikes targeted military sites in central Syria, the report said.
Israel rarely comments about attacks it carries out in Syria, but it has said it will not allow an Iranian presence in Syria, which is a key route for sending Iranian arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Sunday to continue the war against Hamas militants in Gaza as the conflict moves into its 12th month, saying his country is "surrounded by a murderous ideology led by Iran's axis of evil."
In recent days, there have been vast street protests against his handling of the war, along with his failure to reach a cease-fire with Hamas that includes the return of the remaining hostages held by the U.S.-designated terror group.
But Netanyahu told other Israeli leaders that the "great majority of Israel's citizens ... know that we are fully committed to achieving the objectives of the war: To eliminate Hamas, to return all of our hostages, to ensure that Gaza never again constitutes a threat to Israel and to return our residents in the north and south securely to their homes."
The war was triggered by the October attack on southern Israel last year that killed about 1,200 people and led to the capture of about 250 hostages. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 40,900 Palestinians, mostly women and children, although the Israeli military says the death toll includes several thousand militants.
The United States, Qatar and Egypt have spent months trying to broker a cease-fire and the return of the hostages, but the negotiations have repeatedly bogged down.
Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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