UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed to Israel to end the carnage and called for the unconditional release of hostages held by Hamas, urging reversal of a plan to expand illegal settlement construction in the West Bank. The plan would bisect the occupied West Bank and sever ties with East Jerusalem, widely described as killing any chance of a two-state solution. Former Israeli security official Eran Etzion called full occupation plans for Gaza City highly controversial and said Netanyahu seeks to perpetuate war, control the Gaza Strip and evacuate its population. Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich revived the E1 settlement plan to bury the idea of a Palestinian state, and US support for Netanyahu has weakened previous international resistance.
UN secretary general Antonio Guterres also made another futile appeal to Israel to end the carnage. Pleading for the unconditional release of hostages held by Hamas, he urged Israel to reverse a plan to expand illegal settlement construction in the West Bank. The plan would effectively bisect the occupied West Bank and cut it off from East Jerusalem. It is widely being described as a move to kill off any chance of a two-state solution.
Speaking to RTÉ, Eran Etzion, the former deputy head of Israel's ­National Security Council, said the plans to fully occupy Gaza City are "highly controversial", both in Israel and abroad. Mr Netanyahu has a "very clear agenda of perpetuating the war, taking control of the entire Gaza Strip and evacuating its population - at least in the long run", Mr Etzion said.
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