United Nations chief Antonio Guterres has renewed his demand for a ceasefire in Gaza and said that international law was being violated in the war between Israel and the Palestinian armed group Hamas.
Israel has bombarded the besieged Gaza Strip relentlessly since October 7, when Hamas launched a surprise attack on southern Israel, killling at least 1,400 people according to Israeli authorities.
Speaking before the 15-member UN Security Council on Tuesday, Guterres pleaded for civilians to be protected and warned that the fighting risked a wider conflagration in the region.
Guterres also criticised Israel without naming it, saying, “protecting civilians does not mean ordering more than one million people to evacuate to the south, where there is no shelter, no food, no water, no medicine and no fuel, and then continuing to bomb the south itself.”
The secretary-general’s comments drew ire from Israel’s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan, who called the speech “shocking”.
Erdan, called on Guterres to resign – posting on X, formerly known as Twitter “His statement that ‘the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum’ expressed an understanding for terrorism and murder,”.
“It’s truly sad that the head of an organisation that arose after the Holocaust holds such horrible views.”
In his speech, Guterres called the attack by Hamas “horrifying and unprecedented” and demanded the release of the roughly 200 people captured and held captive by Hamas.
Antonio Guterres has also appealed for an immediate ceasefire.
Al Jazeera’s Kristen Saloomey reports for the UN headquarters in New York.
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Is Israel playing victim again?
Mr. Blinken, if the US attacks Iran, make no mistake, Russia will not be an spectator
What about the israeli children hostages? Why nobody is talking about them? Congratulations, UN, you are fully aligned with Putin!
At least UN is wakeup late.. Speak truth about palestine…. But arabs are very lezy and greedy.. Shame on arabs.
Israel and America are terrorists
Agree poor phalestinians the world is a bunch of hypocrites if they would really care they would take Hamas out of there giving phalestinians and israelies ther peace but they just act like they care honestly poorer innocent ppl
UN chief is not worth and baised,
Mr. Guteres, let our Israeli Foreign Minister listen to the meeting with respect.
America is international terrorist and Israel is regional terrorist 😂
Tough. What have the arabs been doing for 75 years
Great words Antonio 👏
From the river to the sea Palestine will be free
Shameless leaders bullying helpless people.
Shame on Hamas terrorists that started this war with Israel
And most people hope that Palestinian never voted for terrorists again
Then there would be peace….
Iran should keep its mouth closed they are a country of terrorists who supports terrorists and a government with
Suppression against women etc etc etc.etc etc
The killing of both Israelis and Palestinians must stop. Bringing up the Holocaust tragedy in every event and accusing others as deniers of it does not mean that you have the license to do the same to other people almost a century later in a completely different part of the world. Hamas is a terrorist organization, but Israel is a state and an active member of the international community. Therefore, it should not act exactly the same way that condemned terrorist organizations do. If you are in a recognized state where you can do it or have been given the green light to keep doing it, then ignore the rest of my comment, but I hope you do not apologize for this a century later, as we recently started apologizing for things done to humanity in different parts of the world in the past.