The Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, invoked Article 99 of the UN Charter this Wednesday, thus alerting the Security Council of the humanitarian situation in the Middle East and urging the body to promote a ceasefire between Israel and the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).

This is the first time that Guterres, the highest representative of the UN since 2017, calls for Article 99, which states that “the Secretary General may draw the attention of the Security Council to any matter that in his opinion may jeopardize the maintenance of international peace and security”.

In this sense, the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, has conveyed his support to the Secretary General of the UN in his request to stop the “humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.”. “The humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is unbearable,” begins the message that Sánchez published on his X account to join the demands.

Sánchez thus ensures that he “fully shares his reasons for making an appeal to the Security Council.”. And, “given the risk of imminent collapse of the humanitarian situation in Gaza, the Security Council must act immediately and impose a humanitarian ceasefire,” continues Sánchez's message, to which he attaches the one he published in turn Guterres making that call.

On October 7, Hamas launched an unprecedented attack against Israeli territory, leaving almost 1,200 dead and another 240 hostages, some of them already released.. The Israeli Army, for its part, launched a bloody counteroffensive against the Palestinian militia structures in the north of the Gaza Strip.

So far, Gazan authorities have confirmed the deaths of more than 16,200 people, most of them women and children.. The humanitarian situation in the enclave worsens as Israeli attacks increase and convoys with supplies and fuel cross the border in dribs and drabs.