UN urges Middle East warring parties to ‘give peace a chance’

The United Nations rights chief called on Friday for cool heads to prevail in the Middle East and urged the warring sides to pull back and give peace a chance.

“The world urgently needs to see steps to contain and extinguish this blaze — but instead we are only seeing more inflammatory, bellicose rhetoric, more bombings, more destruction, killings and escalation, that fuels it further,” Volker Turk told reporters.

“I urge the states involved to take immediate steps to de-escalate, to give peace a chance. And on other states to call clearly on those involved to pull back. Cool heads must prevail if we are to prevent further terror and devastation for civilians.”