UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres met today (Sunday) with families of abductees. During the meeting, Guterres was recorded laughing at Foreign Minister Israel Katz’s decision to return Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, to Israel. “Whatever your Prime Minister, the Minister and Ambassador Erdan say – it doesn’t matter to me. I am committed only to the release of the abductees,” he told the families of the abductees.
Guterres claimed that immediately upon receiving the report with the conclusions on the incidents of sexual violence committed by Hamas terrorists against Jewish women, he decided to hold a press conference and send the findings to the Security Council. “Your foreign minister called the ambassador to return him to Israel protesting that I am hiding the report,” laughed the Secretary General. “What is certain is that these things are not important and in no way reduce my commitment to the release of the abductees.”
The UN Secretary General also claimed that “the Israeli government is constantly distorting my words. It has never happened to me that things I say come out in such a distorted way as in the last few months.”
The UN Secretary General at a meeting with families of abductees
“I said that the October Shiva events did not happen in a vacuum, but that nothing justifies the atrocities committed by Hamas. Someone, no matter who, intentionally omitted the last part of the sentence I said, members of the government in Israel attacked me and said that I was justifying Hamas.”
According to him, “the actions of the Israeli army are not being conducted properly. The damage to Hamas is limited, the civilian price is too high. What matters is the people. Harming human shields is a violation of international law. It is unacceptable.”
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