Reuters
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres denounced on Tuesday a growing number of governments and other groups who feel they are “entitled to a get out of jail free card,” citing wars in Ukraine, the Gaza Strip and Sudan.
With the nearly year-long war between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas in besieged Gaza threatening to now engulf Lebanon – where Israel targeted more than a thousand Hezbollah targets on Monday – Guterres made an impassioned plea.
Russia invaded neighboring Ukraine in February 2022 and the conflict has recently escalated with Kyiv rapidly seizing land in a high-risk Aug. 6 incursion into Russia’s Kursk region and Russia ramping up drone and missile attacks.
On Sudan, Guterres called out the “brutal power struggle” between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that erupted into war in mid-April last year ahead of a planned transition to civilian rule.
Guterres’ speech summed up the state of the world as unsustainable but said the challenges faced could be solved.
