Since the war broke out, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has harshly criticized Israel, and at a press conference he held today (Thursday) he once again had difficulty providing a balanced answer on the proper way for a reformed country to fight a terrorist organization that uses its citizens as human shields.
Guterres, we will recall, was the Prime Minister of Portugal in the past. When we asked him if he “repeats that Israel carries out collective punishment, but as someone who was a head of state and precisely as someone who himself condemned the Hamas attack, what would you do if a terrorist organization launched a murderous attack against your people?” – He continued the criticism of the conduct of the IDF in the Gaza Strip.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres Photo: News 12
“Can’t understand how it’s done this way,” Guterres replied. “Which led to a reported 28,000 deaths. 75% of the population displaced and entire neighborhoods destroyed. There is something very wrong with the way the military campaign is being conducted.”
The UN Secretary General was confronted with the fact that Hamas is assimilating itself into the civilian population, in schools, in hospitals – and he replied: “I condemned the use of civilians as human protectors, I even said that it violates international law. But this law is very clear even when Civilians are used as human protectors, there is still an obligation to protect them.”
Another question we asked Guterres is whether it is not time to recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization. For his part, he replied that the actions of Hamas are indeed terrorism, but that such recognition is the authority of the Security Council alone.
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