2023-10-25 01:42:23
The Secretary General of the UN, António Guterres, rejected this Tuesday the actions of Hamas against the civilian population after meeting with relatives of hostages captured by the Islamist group and reiterated the call for their release.
“After meeting with the families whose loved ones have been taken hostage, I reaffirm my call for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages held in Gaza,” Guterres said today in a brief message on his X (formerly Twitter) account.
“Nothing can justify the killing, harming and kidnapping of civilians by Hamas”added the Portuguese diplomat, who today was called to resign by the Israeli Foreign Minister, Eli Cohen, and the Israeli ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, after his intervention in the Security Council.
Cohen had planned to meet with Guterres and the hostages’ families but canceled the meeting, which the UN spokesperson already announced would proceed without the minister’s presence.
The Security Council held an open debate today on the situation in Gaza with 86 speakers registered on the program, between countries and regional groups -including more than twenty ministers-, a sample of how the Palestinian conflict has returned to the center of world geopolitics.
The words from Guterres that particularly upset Israel came early in the session, when he noted that the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7 “does not come from nowhere,” but from “56 years of occupation.”
Ambassador Erdan considered these statements a justification for attacks against civilians because “they show understanding for this campaign of mass murders of children, women and the elderly,” as indicated in X.
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