Antonio Guterres has said that it is “absolutely essential” to keep the vision for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict alive, Al Jazeera reports.

Many analysts say that Israel’s continuous expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories has made the prospect of a future Palestinian state all but non-existent, but Guterres questioned what the alternative would be.

“Is it the one state solution in which either the Palestinians are expelled or the Palestinians will be forced to live in their land without rights? That would be totally unacceptable,” he said.

“I firmly believe that it is the duty of the international community to do everything to keep the two-state solution alive, and then to materialise the conditions to make it happen.”