UN chief says world should not be intimidated by Israel

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told AFP Friday the world should not be "intimidated" by Israel and its creeping annexation of the occupied West Bank.

In an interview at U.N. headquarters in New York, he also called for more ambitious climate action, saying that efforts to limit global warming to 1.5 Celsius above pre-industrial levels were at risk of "collapsing."

Guterres spoke to AFP ahead of the U.N.'s signature high-level week, at which 10 countries will recognize a Palestinian state, according to France -- over fierce Israeli objections.

The meeting of more than 140 heads of state and government, which paralyzes a corner of Manhattan for a week each year, will likely be dominated by the future of the Palestinians and the war in Gaza.

Israel has reportedly threatened to annex the West Bank if Western nations press ahead with the recognition plan at the U.N. gathering.

But Guterres said, "We should not feel intimidated by the risk of retaliation."

"With or without doing what we are doing, these actions would go on, and at least there is a chance to mobilize the international community to put pressure on them not to happen," he said.

"What we are witnessing in Gaza is horrendous," Guterres said as Israel threatened "unprecedented force" in its ongoing assault on Gaza City.

"It is the worst level of death and destruction that I've seen in my time as Secretary-General, probably my life, and the suffering of the Palestinian people cannot be described -- famine, total lack of effective health care, people living without adequate shelters in huge concentration areas," he said.

Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called for the annexation of swaths of the West Bank with an aim to "bury the idea of a Palestinian state" after several countries joined the French push on statehood.

But Israel's staunch ally, the United States, has held back from any criticism of the war in Gaza or vows to annex the West Bank -- and excoriated its allies who have vowed to recognize a Palestinian state.

AFP