UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres offered a bleak picture of the Middle East scenario on Thursday, warning that growing tensions over the war on Gaza and Iran's retaliatory strike on "Israel" might lead to a "full-scale regional conflict."

Guterres also said that Israeli aggression created a "humanitarian hellscape" for people trapped in the beleaguered Strip.

Guterres told a high-level Security Council meeting that the region was on "a precipice", citing recent escalations "in words and deeds."

Urging "maximum restraint", he emphasized that "one miscalculation, one miscommunication, one mistake, could lead to the unthinkable --- a full-scale regional conflict that would be devastating for all involved."

He called Iran's retaliatory strike a "serious escalation", expressing that it was time to "end the bloody cycle of retaliation."

"The international community must work together to prevent any actions that could push the entire Middle East over the edge, with a devastating impact on civilians. Let me be clear: the risks are spiraling on many fronts."

The Secretary-General reiterated the need for "an immediate humanitarian ceasefire" and an immediate release of all Israeli captives, making no mention of the hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons. 

He called Gaza a "humanitarian hellscape" and expressed that more needs to be done to allow aid into Gaza by "Israel's full and active facilitation of humanitarian operations."

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Guterres also called on the occupation to "protect the Palestinian population of the occupied West Bank against attacks, violence, and intimidation," after an attack on Palestinian villages near Ramallah, which led to the martyrdom of at least one Palestinian and injured multiple others after settlers, protected by occupation forces, stormed the villages of al-Mughayyir and Burqa on Friday. 

'Israel' after every form of life in Gaza, destroys 4,000 IVF embryos

After “Israel” struck Gaza’s largest fertility and IVF clinic, Al Basma Center, five liquid nitrogen tanks in the embryology unit had their lids blasted off, destroying more than 4000 embryos and 1000 specimens of sperm and unfertilized eggs, Reuters reported. 

Bahaeldeen Ghalayini, the Cambridge-trained obstetrician and gynecologist who established the clinic in 1997, expressed, “We know deeply what these 5,000 lives, or potential lives, meant for the parents, either for the future or for the past."

Every ten minutes, a pregnant woman in the #Gaza Strip gives birth under brutal circumstances, as thousands of other pregnant women in shelter centers and tents face the risk of contracting diseases, abortion, and even direct murder by Israeli forces.#PalestineGenocide pic.twitter.com/VO08sNUJ3S

— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) February 14, 2024

He noted that at least half of those couples who can no longer produce sperm or eggs will not have another opportunity to have a baby.

"My heart is divided into a million pieces."

According to Ghalayini, those who underwent IVF were selling TVs and their jewelry in order to pay the fees.

It is worth noting, as per the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics, that almost half the population in the Strip is under 18 and the fertility rate is high at 3.38 births per woman. 

Nine clinics were available in Gaza for the treatment whereby the fertilized eggs were frozen until the time was ready for transfer to a woman's uterus, with most embryos stored at the Al Basma center.