United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. Picture: UN
United Nations (UN) secretary-general António Guterres has told the Security Council that there have been clear violations of international law committed in Gaza which has angered an Israeli delegation and called for him to resign with immediate effect.
Guterres condemned the Israel’s bombing of the densely populated Palestine enclave.
Israel’s heavy air and artillery strikes have killed 5 791 in Gaza, according to the enclave’s health ministry, and plunged the Palestinian territory into a dire humanitarian crisis with millions more displaced.
Israel was retaliating to an October 7 attack by Hamas.
Israel has also cut off water, food, fuel and energy supplies to Gaza, and only a trickle of aid has been allowed in from Egypt in recent days under a US-brokered deal.
Opening the session, Guterres said there was no excuse for the “appalling” violence by Hamas but also warned against “collective punishment” of the Palestinians.
“I am deeply concerned about the clear violations of international humanitarian law that we are witnessing in Gaza. Let me be clear: No party to an armed conflict is above international humanitarian law.”
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Guterres said it’s important to know the attack by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum.
“The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation. They have seen their lands steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence, their economy stifled, their people displaced and their homes demolished.”
However, Israeli representatives were furious with the secretary-general and called for him to resign despite beginning his speech on Tuesday night calling the attack by Hamas “horrifying and unprecedented” and demanded the release of the roughly 200 people captured and held captive by Hamas.
Israeli ambassador Gilad Erdan said Guterres must go.
“The secretary-general must resign. This building was established to prevent atrocities. How can the secretary-general with his word justify in any way the terrible atrocities that happened to civilians.”
Earlier, UN agencies called “on our knees” for emergency aid to be allowed unimpeded into Gaza.
A small trickle of humanitarian aid has entered Gaza since Saturday from the Egyptian side, but Guterres called such limited assistance “a drop of aid in an ocean of need”.
Israel, backed by the United States, has rejected calls to halt the offensive, saying it would only allow Hamas to regroup.
The United States last week vetoed a draft resolution on the crisis, saying it did not sufficiently support Israel’s right to respond to Hamas.
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