The United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has invoked Article 99 of the UN Charter, urging the UN Security Council to act on the war in Gaza, Palestine.
Antonio Guterres invoked Article 99 of the UN Charter, calling on the Security Council to help avert a humanitarian catastrophe.
Appealing for a humanitarian ceasefire, he says the civilian population must be spared from further harm.
The rare move on Wednesday comes as the 15-member Security Council is yet to adopt a resolution calling for a ceasefire between Israel, Hamas and their allies.
Article 99 is a special power – and the only independent political tool given to the Secretary-General in the UN Charter – that allows him to call a meeting of the Security Council on his own initiative to issue warnings about new threats to international peace and security, and matters that are not yet on the council’s agenda.
In his letter to the Security Council’s president, Guterres invoked this responsibility, saying he believed the situation in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, “may aggravate existing threats to the maintenance of international peace and security”. (NewsWire/ Al Jazeera)
