UN chief urges efforts to avert humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres asked the Security Council to act to avert a humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip where fighting has been intensified again.

Guterres wrote a letter to the president of the Security Council to demand action, invoking Article 99 of the UN Charter for the first time since he became UN secretary-general in 2017.

Article 99 states, "The secretary-general may bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security." The secretary-general took the action given the scale of the loss of human life in Gaza and Israel in such a short amount of time.  In the letter, Guterres appealed for a humanitarian cease-fire to be declared.