‘Unlike anything I have witnessed’: Guterres condemns Gaza ‘onslaught’ in final UN address
The Palestine Chronicle reports on 23 September 2026:
Key Developments
- Guterres described the killing and destruction in Gaza as unlike anything he had witnessed throughout his tenure as UN secretary-general.
- He warned that Israeli violence, displacement and illegal settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank were raising the prospect of ethnic cleansing.
- The outgoing UN chief demanded an end to the fighting, unrestricted humanitarian assistance, and institutional reforms that could prevent further impunity.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres used his final address to the General Assembly to denounce the scale of Israel’s “onslaught” on Gaza and warn that developments in the occupied West Bank were threatening Palestinians with ethnic cleansing.
With roughly 100 days remaining in his second and final term, Guterres delivered a wide-ranging assessment of a decade in which wars had intensified, civilians had been deliberately targeted and international law had repeatedly been disregarded.
Referring to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Guterres said what followed October 2023 “was an onslaught on Palestinians in Gaza, with a scale of killing and destruction unlike anything I have witnessed in all my years as secretary general.” The remark was among the strongest descriptions of Gaza delivered by Guterres during his ten years at the head of the international organization.