WASHINGTON: “How much carnage is enough to call for a ceasefire” in Gaza, wondered the president of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) at a gathering of non-aligned nations in Uganda on Friday.

“That situation (in Gaza) behooves us to ask: how much is enough? And does the very concept of enough even exist in this setting?” asked UNGA President Dennis Francis as the death toll in Gaza carnage exceeded 25,000.

Secretary General António Guterres aired similar sentiments in an earlier statement, telling the world: “We cannot allow what has been happening in Gaza to continue. We need an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.”

Addressing a gathering of 120 nations in Kampala, the Ugandan capital, the UNGA chief said the only viable pathway for both Israelis and Palestinians to have peace “is through a negotiated political solution based on the two-state solution”.

Here in Washington, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s rejection of a two-state solution during a phone conversation with US President Joe Biden on Friday reverberated in the US Congress. After a meeting about the Middle East, Senator Chris Van Hollen, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Washington was fed up with Israel’s leadership.

“I think people are at the end of their ropes with the Netanyahu coalition,” he said. “It’s pretty clear that Netanyahu is listening much more to the extremists in his government than the president of the United States.”

Published in Dawn, January 21st, 2024