The comments made by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday, in which he stated that the murderous attack carried out by Hamas on southern Israel did not occur in a vacuum and called it justification for terrorism, infuriated the Israeli government officials.
Eli Cohen, Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, called off a meeting that was supposed to take place with Guterres, and Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Memorial, declared the UN leader did not pass the test.
There will be no meeting between the secretary-general and myself. Following the massacre that took place on October 7, there is no room for a balanced attitude. It is imperative that Hamas be wiped from the face of the earth! Cohen published his statement on social network X on Tuesday, which was formerly known as Twitter.
Gilad Erdan, Israel’s envoy to the United Nations, has demanded that he step down, claiming that his country has to reevaluate its relationship with the international body.
We will not agree to issue visas to representatives of the United Nations. Erdan stated on Army Radio that they had already declined to provide Martin Griffiths, the Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, with a passport and accused Guterres of trying to justify a massacre. Now is the time to instruct them on a valuable lesson.
Israel has a long history of having poor relations with the United Nations, accusing the organisation of having a bias against it.
At least 1,400 Israelis were killed in the attack carried out by the militant group on October 7, and more than 220 were held prisoner. On Tuesday, Guterres spoke at a special meeting of the Security Council to discuss the conflict between Israel and Hamas, which was precipitated by the massacre.
According to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza, at least 6,500 Palestinians, including over 2,700 children, have been murdered as a direct result of Israeli airstrikes that have levelled huge portions of the Gaza enclave.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations addressed the Security Council and stated that he “condemned unequivocally the horrifying and unprecedented acts of terror by Hamas in Israel on October 7.”
He stated that the willful slaughter of civilians, injury of civilians, and kidnapping of civilians, as well as the launch of rockets against civilian targets, cannot be justified under any circumstances.
However, the contextualization of the attack that he provided caused a commotion in Israel. According to Guterres, it was essential to recognise that the attacks carried out by Hamas did not take place in a political void.
The Palestinian people have been occupied for the past 56 years, which has had a suffocating effect on them.
They have witnessed their land being gradually consumed by settlements while also being tormented by violence; their economy being stunted; their people being relocated; and their homes being destroyed.
According to what he indicated, their prospects for a political solution to their predicament have been steadily dwindling.
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