UN chief says he has never seen destruction like Gaza

JAKARTA — UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the scale of killing and destruction in Gaza is unlike anything he has seen during his years in office, according to Indonesian news outlet Liputan6.com. He made the remarks in a speech in Indonesia, the outlet reported on 19 October 2026.

Guterres said there was no justification for the Hamas attack, but added that nothing could justify what followed for the Palestinian people in Gaza. He did not give casualty figures in the reported remarks.

"Scale and intensity of killing, as well as the level of destruction in such a densely populated and confined area, is unlike anything I have witnessed during my years as Secretary-General," he said, according to the report.

In the same speech, Guterres warned of the threat of ethnic cleansing in the occupied Palestinian territory. He said the ongoing conflict tests the international multilateral system and shows whether principles of international law are upheld or ignored.

He called for the full implementation of the peace plan for Gaza. He also urged that the two-state solution not be allowed to disappear from efforts to resolve the conflict. "The peace plan for Gaza must be fully implemented, and we must not allow the two-state solution to disappear before our eyes," he said, according to the report.

Guterres praised Indonesia for consistently standing at the front in defending the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. He said support from countries such as Indonesia is needed to strengthen the multilateral system, so that law can serve as the basis for resolving international conflicts.

Beyond Gaza, Guterres warned that the number of conflicts in the world keeps rising, human suffering is deepening and international law is increasingly ignored. He cited the Middle East, Ukraine, Sudan and Myanmar as part of this pressure on the multilateral system. He also said the world must not divide over geopolitical rivalry and differences of interest between states.

The report is based on a single source. Liputan6.com did not report independent casualty figures, dates of specific events in Gaza, or any response from Israel or Hamas to the remarks. Zenga News has not verified the account of the speech against other sources.

Background

Guterres is the UN Secretary-General. His remarks were made during a visit to Indonesia, according to the report. The report does not give the exact date or venue of the speech.

The war in Gaza followed the Hamas attack on Israel. The Liputan6.com report refers to that attack only as a Hamas terror attack "some years ago". Gaza is a densely populated coastal territory, and the report describes its destruction as concentrated in a "very dense and confined" area.

The two-state solution is a long-standing framework for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Guterres said it must remain part of efforts to end the conflict. The report does not describe the current status of the Gaza peace plan.