UN chief Antonio Guterres said in the Security Council meeting that Hamas did not attack Israel ‘without reason’. Israel was angered by his comment and has demanded resignation and apology from the UN chief.
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen participated in the ministerial meeting of the Security Council. He was to meet Guterres at the United Nations Headquarters on Tuesday afternoon.
Cohen canceled his meeting with the UN Secretary General and accused him of “tolerating and justifying” terrorism.
The UN chief said, “It is also important to recognize that the attacks carried out by Hamas were not without reason. The people of Palestine have been facing suffocating occupation for 56 years.”
Antonio Guterres said, “They have seen their land continuously annexed by (Jewish) settlements and plagued by violence. Their economy collapsed. Their people were displaced and their houses were demolished.
“Their hopes for a political solution to their plight are vanishing.” “But the grievances of the Palestinians cannot be justified by Hamas’s horrific attacks,” he said. And those horrific attacks cannot justify collective punishment of the Palestinian people.
In a post on the social media platform ‘X’, Cohen said he would not “meet with the UN Secretary General. After the “Massacre of October 7”, there is no room for a balanced approach. “Hamas must be wiped off the face of the earth.”
Later Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan said, “Mr. Secretary General, you have lost all morality and impartiality.
When you say these terrible words that these heinous attacks are not unprovoked, you are tolerating terrorism and by tolerating terrorism you are justifying terrorism. ,
He said, “I think the General Secretary should resign. We demand an apology from him.”