Wed 25 October 2023:
In the last few moments, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has held a brief news conference addressing the controversial comments he made yesterday.
He has been criticised by Israeli officials – with some calling for him to resign – after saying the deadly Hamas attack on the country “did not happen in a vacuum”, and that the Palestinian people had endured 56 years of “suffocating occupation”.
Discussing the comments, he told the briefing that he’d said:
- “the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas”;
- and that he then “went on” with his intervention about his position on “all aspects of the Middle East crisis”.
He added that he was “shocked” by the “misrepresentations” of his comments, saying it was portrayed as if he was “justifying acts of terror by Hamas”.
“This is false. It was the opposite,” he said.
“I believe it was necessary to set the record straight especially out of respect for the victims and their families.”
Earlier, the UN secretary-general has tweeted an extract from his speech in an apparent move to show he has criticised both Hamas and Israel for the situation in Gaza right now.
“The grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the horrific attacks by Hamas. Those horrendous attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people,” Guterres said on X.
Israel will refuse visas to UN officials as the spat grows
The fallout comes after the UN chief indirectly criticised Israel for ordering the evacuation of civilians from the north to the south of the Gaza Strip and said Hamas’s attack on October 7 did not happen “in a vacuum”.
“Due to his [UN chief Guterres’s] remarks, we will refuse to issue visas to UN representatives,” Erdan told Army Radio. “We have already refused a visa for Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths. The time has come to teach them a lesson.”
Israeli foreign ministry says Guterres has ‘tarnished UN’ and should retract remarks
The row over comments made by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on the conflict looks set to rumble on today, with the Israeli foreign ministry accusing him of having a “biased and distorted attitude” towards Israel.
It said in a statement that Mr Guterres’s comments at the UN Security Council yesterday “provoke anger and astonishment and tarnish both him and the organisation he heads”.
The ministry went as far as accusing the UN chief of “supporting the monstrous violence” of Hamas in its 7 October attacks.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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