UN chief urges 'irreversible action' on Israel, Palestinian two-state solution
World
France and Saudi Arabia will co-host the conference at the United Nations in June.
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday pushed countries to "take irreversible action towards implementing a two-state solution" between Israel and the Palestinians ahead of an international conference in June.
"I encourage Member States to go beyond affirmations, and to think creatively about the concrete steps they will take to support a viable two-state solution before it is too late," Guterres told a Security Council meeting on the Middle East.
France and Saudi Arabia will co-host the conference at the United Nations in June.
"Our objective is clear: to make progress on the recognition of Palestine and the normalization of relations with Israel at the same time," French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told the Security Council.
"This is how we will be able to guarantee Israel's security and its regional integration, whilst responding to the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians to have their own state," he said.
He said the road map for the effective implementation of the two-state solution also required the disarming of Palestinian militants Hamas, defining a credible government structure in the Gaza Strip that will exclude Hamas and reform of the Palestinian Authority.
The United Nations has long endorsed a vision of two states living side by side within secure and recognized borders. Palestinians want a state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip, all territory captured by Israel in a 1967 war with neighboring Arab states.
ISRAEL FREES GAZA AID WORKER
Israeli authorities freed a Palestinian emergency responder who went missing in late March when 15 humanitarian workers were killed in Gaza in an incident that drew worldwide condemnation, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said.
PRCS staff member Asaad Al-Nsasrah went missing after the 15 paramedics and other rescue workers were shot dead on March 23 in three separate shootings at the same location near the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
The 15 were buried in a shallow grave, close to their wrecked vehicles, where their bodies were found a week later by officials from the United Nations and the PRCS.
"The occupation forces have just released medic Asaad Al-Nsasrah, who was detained on March 23, 2025, while performing his humanitarian duty during the massacre of medical teams in the Tel Al-Sultan area of Rafah Governorate," PRCS said in a post on X.
The Israeli military did not have an immediate comment.
The military initially said soldiers had opened fire on vehicles that approached their position "suspiciously" in the dark without lights or markings. It said they killed six militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad who were travelling in Palestinian Red Crescent vehicles.
But video recovered from the mobile phone of one of the dead men and published by the PRCS showed emergency workers in their uniforms and clearly marked ambulances and fire trucks, with their lights on, being fired on by soldiers.
On April 20, the Israeli military said a review into the killing of emergency responders in Gaza found there had been "several professional failures". It said a deputy commander, a reservist who was the field commander, would be dismissed from his position for providing an incomplete and inaccurate report, and added that a commanding officer was to be reprimanded.
