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A call to world leaders: the UN must act urgently on Gaza or risk collapse
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<span class="field field-title">A call to world leaders: the UN must act urgently on Gaza or risk collapse</span>
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<div class="field field-field-text"><p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>In Gaza, more than two million people are enduring a <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/over-800000-gaza-city-face-catastrophe-israel-deepens-invasion" target="_blank">catastrophe</a> that defies humanity: tens of thousands have been killed - most of them women and children - and hospitals, schools and shelters reduced to rubble. Meanwhile, <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/07/1165517" target="_blank">food</a>, medicine and water are being deliberately denied.</p>
<p>A United Nations Commission of Inquiry has now <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/09/israel-has-committed-genocide-gaza-strip-un-commission-finds" target="_blank">found</a> that Israel is committing <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/topics/israel-genocide-gaza" target="_blank">genocide in Gaza</a>. 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<h3>Read more: <a aria-label="A call to world leaders: the UN must act urgently on Gaza or risk collapse" href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/call-world-leaders-act-urgently-gaza-or-risk-collapse"> A call to world leaders: the UN must act urgently on Gaza or risk collapse</a></h3>
<p><img alt="Protesters gather outside United Nations headquarters in New York to demand action on Gaza, 26 August 2025 (Mark J Sullivan/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters)" src="https://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/styles/max_2600x2600/public/images-story/2025-08-26T132818Z_72350435_MT1ZUMA0001Y17ZG_RTRMADP_3_ZUMA%281%29.jpg.jpg?itok=dDwpcmF8"></p>
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