Overview
- Guterres, speaking at UN headquarters on Wednesday, appointed veteran diplomat Jean Arnault as his personal envoy and warned the conflict has spun beyond leaders’ expectations.
- Arnault will work on the ground to support mediation with all sides, drawing on more than 30 years of peacemaking experience and a recent UN assignment on Afghanistan in 2021.
- Guterres urged the United States and Israel to end the war and pressed Iran to stop attacking neighbors that are not parties to the conflict.
- He called for Hezbollah to halt fire into Israel and told Israel to stop strikes in Lebanon, warning that the Gaza model must not be replicated there.
- He said disruption at the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow shipping lane for Gulf oil, gas and fertilizer, is choking supplies during planting season and driving costs that hit poorer countries hardest.