António Guterres, the UN secretary general, hit the nail firmly on the head when he said the Middle East was on the verge of the abyss, as you advised in your editorial (“The world needs to act to avoid a wider conflict”).
This latest conflict between Hamas and Israel has again inflicted unimaginable suffering on innocent people on both sides. Eventually, international pressure will broker a ceasefire, as we have seen many times before, but we urgently need a radical new plan that works for both Palestine and Israel, while not forgetting the wider Middle East countries. Maybe that plan involves countries not so heavily involved in the current situation.
