JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli officials expressed outrage Wednesday at U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres’ comments that the deadly Hamas attack in southern Israel “did not come out of nowhere,” saying his comment amounted to a justification of terrorism .
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen canceled a planned meeting with Guterres, while officials at Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial, said the UN chief had “failed the test.”
“I will not meet with the UN Secretary General. After the October 7 attack, there is no longer any room for a balanced attitude. “Hamas must be wiped off the face of the earth,” Cohen posted on the social platform X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday.
Israel’s envoy to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, called for his resignation and said Israel must reconsider its relations with the world body.
“We will not issue visas to UN representatives. “We have already refused to give one to Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths,” Erdan told Army Radio, the Israeli army’s radio station, accusing Guterres of justifying a massacre. “It’s time to teach them a lesson.”
Israel has always had tense relations with the United Nations, which it accuses of bias.
Guterres spoke at a special Security Council meeting on Tuesday about the war between Israel and Hamas sparked by the Oct. 7 attack that killed at least 1,400 Israelis and took more than 220 hostage.
Israeli bombings have destroyed large swathes of the Gaza Strip and killed at least 6,500 Palestinians, including more than 2,700 children, according to the Palestinian territory’s health ministry.
Guterres told the council that he “unequivocally condemns the shocking and unprecedented terrorist attacks by Hamas on October 7 in Israel.”
“Nothing can justify killing, wounding and kidnapping civilians or firing missiles at civilian targets,” he said.
But his contextualization of the attack caused an uproar in Israel. Guterres said it was important to recognize that “the Hamas attacks did not come out of nowhere.”
“The Palestinian people have been subjected to oppressive occupation for 56 years. They have seen their country continually consumed by colonies and wracked by violence. its stifled economy; People were displaced and their houses were demolished. “Their hopes for a political solution to their serious situation have faded,” he said.
Guterres tried to walk back his comments on Wednesday, tweeting that “grievances against the Palestinian people cannot justify Hamas’ horrific attacks.” “These terrible attacks cannot justify collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”
But Israel would not be appeased.
“The massacre of Jews by Hamas on October 7 was genocidal in its intentions and immeasurably brutal in its forms,” Yad Vashem leadership chairman Dani Dayan said in a statement.
He said what happened tested the sincerity of world leaders who came to Yad Vashem and vowed “never again.”
“Anyone who tries to ‘understand’, looks for a justifying context, does not condemn the perpetrators and does not demand the unconditional and immediate release of those abducted does not pass the test.” “UN Secretary General António Guterres has failed the test.”
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