2023-11-14 22:14:57
UN Secretary-General António Guterres has once once more been sharply attacked by Israel for his opinion on the Gaza war. Foreign Minister Eli Cohen denied him eligibility for his office. “Guterres does not deserve to be at the head of the United Nations,” Cohen said at a news conference in Geneva on Tuesday. “Guterres, like all free nations, should say clearly and loudly: ‘Liberate Gaza from Hamas,'” demanded Cohen.
The 74-year-old did not take a decisive enough stand once morest the terror of the radical Islamic Hamas, the Israeli Foreign Minister concluded. “He has not yet promoted any peace process in the Middle East region.”
On Tuesday, Guterres said he was “deeply concerned” regarding the situation in the hospitals in the Gaza Strip. Guterres announced in New York that this resulted in dramatic loss of life. “In the name of humanity, the Secretary-General calls for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire,” his office said.
Three weeks ago, statements by the UN Secretary General regarding the war between Israel and the radical Islamic Hamas led to angry reactions from Cohen and the Israeli embassy to the UN, Gilad Erdan. At the time, Guterres strongly condemned the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th, but at the same time pointed out that it did not take place “in a vacuum” – Palestinians have suffered under “suffocating occupation” for 56 years.
Israeli UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan then spoke of a “pure blood libel” by Guterres and called for his resignation. Cohen, then in New York, canceled a planned meeting with the Secretary General. He said he was “shocked” by the “distorted representation” of his statements. In doing so, he in no way justified “the terrorist attacks by Hamas.”
At the weekend, Guterres reiterated in an interview with the US broadcaster CNN that the barbaric attacks by the Islamist Hamas did not justify collective punishment from Israel. “You cannot use the terrible things that Hamas has done as a reason for collective punishment of the Palestinian people,” Guterres said in the conversation broadcast on Sunday.
Guterres’ spokesman Stéphane Dujarric reacted calmly to Cohen’s renewed attack on Tuesday. When asked, he said the UN Secretary-General was “continuing his work with nerves of steel, calm, determination” and on the basis of the UN Charter, international humanitarian law and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
There is fierce fighting between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian extremists near hospitals in the Gaza Strip. In addition, Palestinians say attacks on clinic infrastructure and a lack of fuel have claimed the lives of a number of patients, including newborns. Israel denies attacking health facilities.
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