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United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks during a press conference as part of his visit to Lebanon in Beirut, Lebanon, on March 14, 2026. [Houssam Shbaro – Anadolu Agency]
UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned on Thursday of the consequences of the war in the Middle East, saying it is causing widespread destruction and could expand into a full regional conflict.
Speaking to reporters at the UN headquarters in New York, Guterres said “the world is on the edge of a wider war that would engulf the Middle East with dramatic impacts around the globe,” noting that its impact is already being felt in many countries, “in the daily lives of people struggling with rising food and energy costs.”
He said “Every day this war continues, human suffering grows,” warning that any disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz would directly affect the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people.
Guterres added that attacks targeting civilians and infrastructure, along with rising food and energy prices, are placing increasing pressure on societies worldwide, stressing that continued escalation will only worsen the situation.
He called for an end to what he described as a “spiral of death and destruction”, urging the protection of civilians and vital facilities, including nuclear sites, and the safeguarding of international maritime navigation.
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Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Straight of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won. He’s challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.
Last year, when UN Secretary General António Guterres said PR firms were “acting as enablers to planetary destruction” by working for fossil fuel clients, he didn’t name WPP specifically. But they were the main company he was talking about. The advertising behemoth has more clients in the oil industry than any rival.
Guterres, being a diplomat, uses mild language. In my opinion, WPP is the world’s leading spin doctor for planetary death.
And so I was surprised when I checked in on who David Lammy had appointed to the Foreign Office supervisory board, to see WPP’s recent UK President Karen Blackett is now one of the four non-executive directors – as I revealed last week over on Democracy for Sale.
The supervisory board provides “strategic direction,” and “oversight” for the department. Adverts for the roles say they are “significant contributors to both the operational and strategic leadership of the department. Their primary objective is to bring independent advice, support and challenge… helping to shape the department’s work.”
In February, lawyers for campaign group Badvertising and others submitted a complaint about WPP to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, arguing it was breaching its international guidelines on corporate responsibility. Its work for a number of fossil fuel and pollution intensive corporations, the lawyers said, “directly increases demand for carbon intensive products and undermines global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions”.
Why is that an organisation whose recently departed UK boss you’d want overseeing British foreign policy? Blackett spent 29 years working for WPP – three decades as a spin doctor at an advertising behemoth which represents some of the most destructive corporations on the planet. How can her advice possibly be independent? How can the perspectives and viewpoints of clients not have imprinted on her?
As the Badvertising website says, “for every rights-abusing, climate-wrecking corporation, there’s an advertising agency working hard to clean up their public image. And no one does this better than the world’s biggest ad firm, WPP”.
Last month, climate activists occupied WPP’s London headquarters, demanding it cut ties with clients including Shell, BP, Total, ExxonMobil, Drax and Saudi Aramco.
UK Labour Party Shadow Foreign Secretary repeatedly heckled at a speech to the Fabian Society over his and the Labour Party’s support for and complicity in Israel’s genocide of Gaza.Greenpeace activists display a billboard during a protest outside Shell headquarters on July 27, 2023 in London. (Photo: Handout/Chris J. Ratcliffe for Greenpeace via Getty Images)Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
A destroyed mechanic’s shop in downtown Swannanoa, North Carolina, US, December 2024, nearly three months after Hurricane Helene in late September. Photograph: Mike Belleme/The Guardian
Floods, heatwaves and supercharged hurricanes occurred in hottest climate human society has ever experienced
…
The world is already deep into the climate crisis, with the WMO report saying that for the first time, the 10 hottest years on record all occurred in the last decade. However, global carbon emissions have continued to rise, which will bring even worse impacts. Experts were particularly critical of the purge of climate scientists and programmes by the US president, Donald Trump, saying that ignoring reality left ordinary people paying the price.
“Leaders must step up – seizing the benefits of cheap, clean renewables for their people and economies – with new national climate plans due this year,” said the UN secretary general, António Guterres.
Dr Luke Parsons, of the Nature Conservancy, said: “Every year, we venture further into uncharted territory, with 2024 the hottest year modern human society has ever experienced. Yet the coming decade is expected to be even hotter, pushing us deeper into this unprecedented climate.”
Previous research determining the role of the climate crisis in what are now unnatural disasters has shown that at least 550 heatwaves, floods, storms, droughts and wildfires had been made significantly more severe or more frequent by global heating.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels.
Israel resumed its genocidal violence against the people of Gaza a day before the Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu was set to stand trial for corruption and face rallies against his move to dismiss the Shin Bet chief.
Israel resumed its genocidal aggression on Gaza in the early hours of Tuesday, March 18, with a series of airstrikes that killed over 400 Palestinians, many of them women and children. Hundreds more were injured.
Shortly after the attacks were launched, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told Fox News that Israel consulted the United States on its intention to launch aerial attacks on the besieged enclave.
“As President Trump has made it clear – Hamas, the Houthis, Iran, all those who seek to terrorize not just Israel, but also the United States of America, will see a price to pay. All hell will break loose,” Leavitt emphasized.
Israel determined to continue its genocide
Briefly after the deadly assaults took place in Gaza, Israeli officials delivered statements that confirmed Israel’s intention to proceed with the genocide indefinitely.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a recorded speech on Tuesday that the airstrikes, which targeted Gaza, are “only the beginning” and that all ceasefire talks going forward will be held “under fire”.
Meanwhile, Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz threatened that if Hamas does not release all Israeli captives, “blows will only increase and intensify”.
The resumption of the genocide came after Israel obstructed negotiations on the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire and prisoners for captives swap deal. It also followed more than two weeks of Israel’s full blockade on humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.
It’s worth noting that Israel reportedly committed hundreds of violations of the ceasefire agreement in its first phase, which included:
killing civilians
home demolitions
land bulldozing
preventing displaced persons from returning to their home regions
military advances beyond the agreed-upon withdrawal lines
obstructing reconstruction
airspace violations
delaying prisoners’ releases
Despite these violations, Hamas continued to accelerate their end of the agreement, releasing more captives than promised in an effort to begin second-phase negotiations in good faith.
Reactions to the resumption of the war
All major Palestinian factions have categorically condemned Israel’s unilateral violation of the ceasefire deal and demanded that the deal’s guarantors and mediators, as well as the rest of the international community take immediate action to stop the return to genocide.
Hamas
For its part, Hamas vehemently condemned Israel’s actions and accused the Trump administration of being complicit in Israel’s resumption of the genocide in Gaza. “The US administration’s admission that it was informed in advance of the Zionist aggression confirms its direct complicity in the war of extermination against our people,” it said in a statement.
“This admission once again reveals America’s blatant complicity and bias towards the occupation, and exposes the falsity of its claims about its commitment to calm,” Hamas added.
“With its unlimited political and military support for the occupation, Washington bears full responsibility for the massacres and killing of women and children in Gaza,” the movement stressed, calling upon the international community to take urgent action “to hold the occupation and its supporters accountable for these crimes against humanity.”
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) held the US accountable as well, labelling it as a partner in the massacres committed by Israel against the Palestinians in Gaza.
Islamic Jihad
For its part, the Islamic Jihad movement confirmed that “the renewed aggression will neither give Israel the upper hand over the resistance nor extricate Netanyahu and his regime from the crises they are escaping from. Rather, it will further weaken them and accumulate more failures, leaving them humiliated and submissive.”
Ansar Allah
The Supreme Political Council of Ansar Allah in Yemen issued a statement holding Israel and the US “fully responsible for violating the ceasefire agreement, thwarting all efforts to move to the second phase, remilitarizing the seas, and escalating tensions in the region.”
The council further warned the two countries “to bear the consequences and repercussions, no matter how severe.”
Ansar Allah’s response was not limited to issuing a statement, as the armed forces affiliated with the movement targeted Israel’s Nevatim airbase in the southern occupied territories on Tuesday, using a Palestine-2 hypersonic ballistic missile.
Hezbollah
Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah issued a statement, denouncing the “US full partnership” and the “shameful silence” of the international community to the decision of “Netanyahu’s terrorist government to turn against the ceasefire and resume the war.”
The Lebanese resistance group pointed out that the renewed aggression “confirms that this rogue entity and the US administration do not respect any commitments and agreements and that they are two sides of the same coin that thirsts for blood and knows only the rhetoric of killing and destruction.”
International condemnation
A number of countries also condemned the resumption of the aggression, or expressed their concern about the repercussions of the escalation in the region, including: China, Russia, Egypt, Qatar, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Türkiye, France, United Kingdom, Ireland, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, and Australia.
The United Nations, including Secretary-General António Guterres, sharply condemned Israel’s aggression, with Guterres saying he was “outraged” by the airstrikes.
People’s movements and organizations across the globe that have been mobilizing for the past 16 months against Israel’s genocide in Gaza also responded to Israel’s attacks and called for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
The International Peoples’ Assembly (IPA) condemned that, “The US has directly supported Israel’s renewed aggression, offering unlimited political and military backing while pushing for further escalation with inflammatory rhetoric and threats. This aggression extends beyond Palestine, with attacks on Yemen, fueling regional tensions and conflict. Meanwhile, the international community remains silent and fails to act on these escalating violations.“ The IPA called for people across the world to mobilize from March 18 to 30 “to reject the escalation of Zionist aggression on the people of Gaza and to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people”.
On March 18, people in major cities in the United States, Morocco, Italy, and other countries, were already on the streets demanding an arms embargo on Israel and a return to the ceasefire.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad mourn leaders, including IJ spokesperson Abu Hamza
Hamas announced in a statement on Tuesday that a number of its governmental leaders were killed in the Israeli attacks across the war-torn strip.
The movement confirmed in a press statement that among those assassinated were the Head of Government Issam al-Dallis, Deputy Minister of Justice Ahmed al-Hitta, Deputy Minister of Interior Major General Mahmoud Abu Wafa, and Director General of the Internal Security Service Major General Bahjat Abu Sultan.
Meanwhile, the Islamic Jihad movement announced the assassination of its iconic masked spokesperson and leader, Naji Abu Seif, who was long known by his nom de guerre Abu Hamza.
Naji Abu Seif aka Abu Hamza was killed in Israeli airstrikes on March 18.
Mourning Abu Hamza, the movement said in a statement: “The martyred spokesperson was known as a voice of the resistance, fearing no reproach in his devotion to Allah, eloquent in his speech, and courageous in his heroic positions in defense of the resistance and the rights of our people, never wavering in his stance.”
Netanyahu resumed the war to evade his own political crisis
Several analysts suggest that Netanyahu resorted to resuming the war on Gaza to escape from an imminent political impasse, especially as he was set to testify in his corruption trial on Tuesday.
Taking the resumption of the war as a pretext, Netanyahu submitted a delay request to the concerned court saying: “Hours ago, the IDF commenced a military operation in the Gaza Strip. This morning at 11, an urgent security consultation will take place that will include the prime minister, defense minister and heads of the IDF security apparatus.”
Some consider the war option was also a savior for Netanyahu, as mass demonstrations were planned to take place in Jerusalem during the week to protest his declared intention to fire the chief of the Israeli Security Agency (Shin Bet) Ronen Bar.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speak to reporters in the White House in Washington, D.C. on February 4, 2025. (Photo: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)
Standing beside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump said that “the U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip,” which would be emptied of Palestinians.
U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the United States will “take over” Gaza after emptying the embattled enclave of nearly all its native Palestinians, sparking a firestorm of criticism that included allegations of intent to commit ethnic cleansing.
Speaking during a press conference with fugitive Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, Trump told reporters, “The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too.”
“We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site, and get rid of the destroyed buildings—level it out and create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area,” Trump continued.
“We’re going to develop it, create thousands and thousands of jobs, and it will be something that the entire Middle East could be very proud of,” he said, evoking the proposals of varying seriousness to build Jewish-only beachfront communities over the ruins of Gaza.
Doubling down on his January call for the removal of most of Gaza’s population to Egypt and Jordan—both of which vehemently rejected the proposal—Trump said that “it would be my hope that we could do something really nice, really good, where [Palestinians] wouldn’t want to return.”
“Why would they want to return?” asked Trump. “The place has been hell.”
Asked how many Palestinians should leave Gaza, Trump replied, “all of them,” citing a figure of 1.7-1.8 million Palestinians out of an estimated population of approximately 2.3 million people.
The forced transfer of a population by an occupying power is a war crime, according to Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention—under which Israel’s settler colonies in the occupied West Bank are also illegal.
“I don’t think people should be going back to Gaza,” Trump continued. “Gaza is not a place for people to be living, and the only reason they want to go back, and I believe this strongly, is because they have no alternative. If they had an alternative, they’d much rather not go back to Gaza and live in a beautiful alternative that’s safe.”
Asked if he would deploy U.S. troops to Gaza, Trump said that “we’ll do what’s necessary. If it’s necessary, we’ll do that.”
Palestinian Ambassador to the U.N. Riyad Mansour responded by affirming that “our country and our home is the Gaza Strip.”
“It’s part of Palestine,” he stressed. “Our homeland is our homeland.”
Responding to Trump’s remarks, Netanyahu praised his ally’s “willingness to puncture conventional thinking” and stand behind Israel.
“[Trump] sees a different future for that piece of land that has been the focus of so much terrorism, so many attacks against us, so many trials and so many tribulations,” Netanyahu told reporters as he stood beside the U.S. leader. “He has a different idea, and I think it’s worth paying attention to this. We’re talking about it. He’s exploring it with his people, with his staff.”
“I think it’s something that could change history,” Netanyahu added, “and it’s worthwhile really pursuing this avenue.”
There is currently a fragile cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, where more than 15 months of Israeli bombardment, invasion, and siege have left more than 170,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and more than 2 million others forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened, according to local and international officials and agencies.
Numerous Israeli leaders have advocated the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza and the Jewish recolonization of the coastal enclave, most of whose inhabitants are the descendants of Palestinians forcibly expelled from other parts of Palestine during the establishment of the modern state of Israel in the late 1940s. Palestinians ethnically cleansed during what they call the Nakba, or catastrophe, have since been denied their U.N.-guaranteed right of return to their homeland.
Last November, former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon acknowledged that the ethnic cleansing of northern Gaza was underway. Other Israeli political and military leaders have said that the so-called “Generals’ Plan”—a strategy to starve and ethnically cleanse Palestinians from northern Gaza—was effectively in progress.
Palestinian-American journalist Ramzy Baroud responded to Trump’s remarks in a video posted on social media Tuesday.
“Now, you would say, ‘Wait a minute, Trump seems to be really, really determined, his heart is set on ethnically cleansing Palestinians, and this subject is back on the table,'” Baroud said. “The question is, whose table? It’s not on the table of the Palestinian people.”
Earlier Tuesday, Trump signed an executive order withdrawing the United States from the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and continuing the freeze on funding for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which Israel has baselessly accused of being a terrorist organization.
In a fact sheet viewed by multiple media outlets, the White House asserted that UNHRC “has not fulfilled its purpose and continues to be used as a protective body for countries committing horrific human rights violations.”
“The UNHRC has demonstrated consistent bias against Israel, focusing on it unfairly and disproportionately in council proceedings,” the White House continued. “In 2018, the year President Trump withdrew from the UNHRC in his first administration, the organization passed more resolutions condemning Israel than Syria, Iran, and North Korea combined.”
UNHRC spokesperson Pascal Sim noted Tuesday that the U.S. has been an observer state, not a UNHRC member, since January 1, and according to U.N. rules, it cannot “technically withdraw from an intergovernmental body that is no longer part of.”
The UNRWA funding pause is based on Israeli claims—reportedly extracted from Palestinian prisoners in an interrogation regime rife with torture and abuse—that a dozen of the agency’s more than 13,000 workers in Gaza were involved in the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack. These claims prompted numerous nations including the United States to cut off funding for UNRWA last year. The U.S. had been UNRWA’s biggest benefactor, providing $300-400 million annually to the lifesaving organization.
UNRWA fired nine employees in response to Israel’s claim, even as the agency admitted there was no evidence linking the staffers to October 7. Faced with this lack of evidence, the European Union and countries including Japan, Germany, Canada, and Australia reinstated funding for UNRWA. Last March, then-U.S. President Joe Biden signed a bill prohibiting American funding for the agency.
Israeli lawmakers have also banned UNRWA from operating in Israel, severely hampering the agency’s ability to carry out its mission throughout Palestine, including in Gaza and the illegally occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
According to the most recent UNRWA situation report, at least 272 of the agency’s workers have been killed by Israeli forces, which since October 2023 have bombed numerous schools, shelters, and other facilities used by the agency.
William Deere, the director of UNRWA’s Washington, D.C. office, toldPBS earlier this week that “there is no alternative to UNRWA.”
“UNRWA performs a unique function in the U.N. system,” Deere explained. “We are a direct service provider. We run… a healthcare network, we run an education system, we provide relief and social services.”
As U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said last month, “UNRWA has been carrying out activities in the occupied Palestinian territory for more than 70 years… and has thus accumulated unparalleled experience in providing assistance that is tailored to the specific needs of Palestine refugees.”
Trump’s executive order preceded his meeting with Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court after it issued arrest warrants for him and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, last November for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. The tribunal also issued a warrant for Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri.
The U.S. president’s directives also followed his January freeze on foreign aid to countries except for Israel and Egypt, and his plan to shut down the United States Agency for International Development.
This article and its headline have been updated to include Trump’s call for U.S. ownership of Gaza.
