Guterres cast a wide net for talent to be on the panel, which includes government officials and religious leaders, academics and activists, and business figures from technology companies like Google and Sony, drawn from every continent.

Four resolutions on Gaza have failed at the Council in the last ten days, with Russia and the US vetoing one each, illustrating the inefficacy of the UN’s highest decision-making body when the national interests of the permanent members collide.

Some have suggested that Western countries have double standards in how they view Palestinian and Israeli lives....Blinken said, “There is no hierarchy when it comes to protecting civilian lives.  A civilian is a civilian is a civilian, no matter his or her nationality, ethnicity, age, gender, faith”.

He said that “India backed the establishment of a sovereign, independent and viable state of Palestine, living within secure and recognised borders, side by side in peace with Israel, taking into account the legitimate security concerns of Israel”.

It is this facile logic of Pakistan and some other countries that terrorists deemed by a country to be “freedom fighters” are not terrorists that has impeded the adoption of an international convention against terrorism proposed by India.

Amnesty International said that its 2018 report on the massacre of the Hindus was “based on dozens of interviews conducted there and across the border in Bangladesh, as well as photographic evidence analysed by forensic pathologists”.

The US sole negative vote that was a veto of the Brazil-sponsored resolution plays into the hands of the Palestinians and Russia by showing Washington’s isolation from even its allies on the broader situation.

Guterres has said that the Middle East is on “the verge of an abyss” and called on Israel to lift the blockade on Gaza where food and water supplies are perilously dwindling and people are not able to move out.

Guterres also said that he was “deeply distressed” Israel’s “complete siege” of the  Gaza Strip and added that the already “dire” situation there will “deteriorate exponentially”.

Seeking to link Pakistan’s floods to climate change, Guterres said, “The country is responsible for less than 1 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions – but its people are 15 times more likely to die from climate-related impacts than people elsewhere”.