UN chief praises Trump's 'large contribution' to Gaza ceasefire

AFP , Wednesday 22 Jan 2025

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres on Wednesday hailed Donald Trump's diplomatic efforts to help secure a truce in the Gaza Strip following 15 months of Israeli deadly war.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in Davos
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres addresses the audience during the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos AFP

 

"I will praise the United States, Qatar and Turkey for their efforts for months and months and months to obtain the release of hostages, also to obtain the ceasefire," Guterres said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

"There was a large contribution of the robust diplomacy of the at-the-time president-elect of the United States," he added.

"I feel that when we had the position of Israel still reluctant to the ceasefire just two days before it happened, and then all of a sudden there was an acceptance," he added.

The ceasefire has held since going into effect on Sunday, although Trump said at the start of the week that he was not confident it would hold.

The first phase of the agreement involves the release of a total of about 1,900 Palestinians from the Israeli jails in exchange for 33 Israelis held in Gaza.

But Guterres said it was not clear yet what the future relationship would look like between Israelis and Palestinians.

"One possibility is to move into annexation of the West Bank, probably a kind of a limbo situation in Gaza, which of course is against its national law and would mean there will never be peace in the Middle East," he warned.

Israel's extremist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler in the Palestinian territory, said recently that 2025 would be "the year of sovereignty", on the occupied West Bank.

During his first term in the White House, Trump put forward a peace plan in 2020 that would have included major Israeli annexations in the West Bank.

* This story was edited by Ahram Online.

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