A call to world leaders: the UN must act urgently on Gaza or risk collapse

Next week, the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly will convene in New York, bringing together world leaders and custodians of our shared humanity.

As a former colleague who once stood among you in those halls, corridors and forums in pursuit of peace and a stable world order, I address you today with an urgent and heartfelt appeal.

In Gaza, more than two million people are enduring a catastrophe that defies humanity: tens of thousands have been killed - most of them women and children - and hospitals, schools and shelters reduced to rubble. Meanwhile, food, medicine and water are being deliberately denied.

A United Nations Commission of Inquiry has now found that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The situation there is not only a humanitarian catastrophe but a moral reckoning for the UN, and your actions now will decide its very legitimacy and survival.

This reckoning comes at a time when the UN Security Council itself is paralysed, trapped by the principle-free rivalry among the P5 countries (the five permanent members). That paralysis has made the mission of the General Assembly more crucial than ever.

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