United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says the Security Council is an "outdated," "unfair" and "ineffective system" whose failure to put an end to Israel's war on Gaza has damaged the credibility of the organisation as a whole.Speaking to Al Jazeera Arabic in an exclusive interview, the UN chief decried the failures of the council, which was established in the aftermath of World War II to ensure international peace and security but whose permanent members' veto power has consistently proven to be an obstacle to that goal.

The council, Guterres said, "doesn't correspond to the world of today".

"The truth is that the Security Council has systematically failed in relation to the capacity to put an end to the most dramatic conflicts that we face today: Sudan, Gaza, Ukraine."

'A severe handicap'

Guterres, a former prime minister of Portugal who has helmed the UN since 2017, stressed that the organisation's other bodies and particularly its humanitarian agencies have continued to deliver essential services to Palestinians throughout Israel's more than 11-month assault on Gaza. But he noted that the council's political failure to bring an end to the conflict has hurt the UN's other bodies.

"The UN is not the Security Council," Guterres said. But he acknowledged that UN staff in the field -- and particularly those from ...