Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, continued to criticize UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres for comments regarding the Israel-Hamas war Wednesday.
In statements made Tuesday regarding the war, which Israel declared after a surprise attack by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas killed more than 1,300 people, Guterres said the attacks “did not happen in a vacuum.”
“The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation,” he added. “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 “the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas,” but that “those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”
“The relentless bombardment of Gaza by Israeli forces, the level of civilian casualties, and the wholesale destruction of neighborhoods continue to mount and are deeply alarming,” he added. Guterres also criticized Israel’s evacuation order for more than 1 million people in Gaza, where war continued to rage this week.
In response, Erdan took to social media.
“The shocking speech by the @UN Secretary-General at the Security Council meeting, while rockets are being fired at all of Israel, proved conclusively, beyond any doubt, that the Secretary-General is completely disconnected from the reality in our region and that he views the massacre committed by Nazi Hamas terrorists in a distorted and immoral manner,” he said in a Tuesday X post. “His statement that, ‘the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum,’ expressed an understanding for terrorism and murder. It’s really unfathomable. It’s truly sad that the head of an organization that arose after the Holocaust holds such horrible views. A tragedy!”
In another post, Erdan called on Guterres to resign Tuesday.
“There is no justification or point in talking to those who show compassion for the most terrible atrocities committed against the citizens of Israel and the Jewish people,” he said. “There are simply no words.”
While Erdan said the secretary general’s comments are an example of bias and hatred against Israel, Guterres said he was “shocked by the misrepresentation,” of his statements.
“I spoke of the grievances of the Palestinian people,” he said, reiterating he does not think those grievances justify Hamas’ attacks on civilian targets.
Erdan repeated this request for Guterres to resign in a Wednesday post.
“It is simply a shame that the UN Secretary General still does not apologize for the distorted statements he said – he must resign,” it read. According to the UN, Israel’s foreign minister Eli Cohen also accused Guterres of justifying terrorism. He called a bilateral meeting with the UN chief on Tuesday.