UN secretary-general invokes rarely used power to demand cease-fire in Gaza

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks during a session at the COP28 U.N. Climate Summit on Friday, Dec. 1, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (AP/Joshua A. Bickel)

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres distributed a letter to members of the organization's security council calling for an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.

The secretary-general invoked a rarely used power of his office on Wednesday to publish a letter to the members of the council expressing severe concern about the violence continuing to unfold in the Gaza Strip and increased inability to address the casualties.

"I am writing under Article 99 of the United Nations Charter to bring to the attention of the Security Council a matter which, in my opinion, may aggravate existing threats to the maintenance of international peace and security," Guterres said in the letter.

"We are facing a severe risk of collapse of the humanitarian system," he added. "The situation is fast deteriorating into a catastrophe with potentially irreversible implications for Palestinians as a while and for peace and security in the region. Such an outcome must be avoided at all cost."

"The international community has a responsibility to use all its influence to prevent further escalation and end this crisis," Guterres also said in the letter. "I urge the members of the Security Council to press to avert a humanitarian crisis. I reiterate my appeal for a humanitarian ceasefire to be declared. This is urgent."