ISLAMABAD: United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres on Wednesday warned that the “specter of ethnic cleansing” was stalking the occupied Palestinian territory, urging full implementation of a Gaza peace plan and renewed efforts to preserve the two-state solution.

Guterres was speaking at an event at Pakistan’s Foreign Services Academy, which coincided with the third anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, followed by Israel’s full-scale war on Gaza that has since killed more than 74,000 Palestinians, displaced much of Gaza’s population and triggered a humanitarian crisis.

The UN chief said the number of conflicts was growing around the world, human suffering was deepening, and international law was being cast aside, adding that nothing could justify the “scale and intensity of the death and destruction” that followed for Palestinians in Gaza after Oct. 7, 2023 attacks.

“And now, the specter of ethnic cleansing is stalking the occupied Palestinian territory,” he said. “The peace plan for Gaza must be fully implemented and we cannot allow the two-state solution to be bulldozed away.”

Israel agreed to a ceasefire brokered by the United States under the peace plan in October last year but has since advanced further into Gaza, killing more than 1,400 people, according to the Gaza health ministry.

Israel has occupied Palestinian territory – encompassing the Gaza Strip and West Bank, including East Jerusalem –since 1967. In recent months, the West Bank, which Palestinians want as the core of a future independent state along with Gaza and East Jerusalem, has seen an acceleration in Israeli settlement activity and settler violence, as well as large-scale displacement caused by Israeli military operations.

Pakistan, which does not have diplomatic relations with Israel, calls for a two-state solution and supports an independent Palestinian state as per the aspirations of the Palestinian people, with Jerusalem as its capital and according to the pre-1967 borders.

During his address at Wednesday’s event, the UN chief, who arrived in Islamabad on Tuesday for an official visit through Oct. 8, also commended Pakistan’s efforts to help forge peace between the United States and Iran.

“Pakistan is once again demonstrating that commitment to peace,” he said. “At a moment of profound and complex geopolitical tension, Islamabad emerged as a vital center for dialogue and de-escalation.”

The US and Israel launched the war on February 28, killing Iran’s leadership and demanding it cease any nuclear-related activities. The conflict, which followed Israel’s war on Gaza, has plunged the Middle East into violence, with Tehran’s retaliatory strikes targeting Washington’s Gulf allies and sending global energy prices skyrocketing.

Pakistan, which helped broker an interim US-Iran peace deal in mid-June that fell apart shortly afterwards, has repeatedly urged Washington and Tehran to return to dialogue.