The Times of Israel 24 October 2023
Israeli envoy slams remarks from Guterres at Security Council as justification for terror, as FM cancels meeting with him; Gantz calls him a ‘terror apologist’
headquarters, October 24, 2023. (Seth Wenig/AP)
Israeli officials railed at UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres Tuesday after he appeared to suggest the impetus for the Hamas terror group’s devastating October 7 attack on Israel was the Jewish state’s continued control of Palestinian territories, with the Israeli Ambassador to the UN demanding that he resign.
“It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum,” Guterres said at a UN Security Council meeting on the Israel-Hamas war, which erupted when the terror group ravaged Israeli border communities, killing some 1,400 people, the vast majority of them civilians.
“The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation. They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced and their homes demolished. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing,” Guterres said.
Israel evacuated all settlements and military forces from the Gaza Strip under the 2005 Disengagement. It has maintained a tight blockade of the territory since Hamas took control in 2007, as has Egypt, with Jerusalem saying it must do so to limit the terror group’s ability to arm itself for attacks. In the West Bank, settlements have expanded under consecutive governments with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly arguing the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority is not a partner for peace, having rejected several offers in the past.
Guterres added that “the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas. And those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people,” an apparent reference to Israel’s ongoing campaign of airstrikes in the Gaza Strip that Hamas officials say has killed thousands.
Israel was outraged by Guterres’s comments. UN envoy Gilad Erdan called them “shocking,” and demanded that the secretary general resign. Foreign Minister Eli Cohen canceled a meeting with Guterres, and Minister Benny Gantz labeled the UN chief a “terror apologist.”
More:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-livid-after-un-chief-says-hamas-attacks-did-not-occur-in-vacuum/
