U.N. Chief Fails to Condemn Hamas in Response to Hostage Murders

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is under fire for responding to the heartless murder of Israeli and American hostages in Gaza on Friday with a message that did not condemn or even mention the Hamas terrorists who abducted and killed them.

“I will never forget my meeting last October with the parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin and other hostage families,” Guterres wrote on Sunday. “Today’s tragic news is a devastating reminder of the need for the unconditional release of all hostages and an end to the nightmare of war in Gaza.”

The response to his post on the social media platform X was immediate and overwhelmingly negative, as hundreds of respondents called Guterres “sick,” “cowardly,” and “evil” for failing to condemn Hamas in his message.

Some also took Guterres to task for using passive voice and vague allusions to “tragic news” to avoid even acknowledging what happened: Hamas terrorists murdered their prisoners in cold blood with execution-style gunshots to the head because the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) was on the verge of rescuing them. 

“Hamas just murdered six Israeli and American hostages by shooting them in the head. Why can’t you say so? Why can’t you condemn them?” an exasperated Hillel Neuer, executive director of U.N. Watch, asked Guterres.

“Won’t even say Hamas. Won’t condemn the terror group that took Hersh, held him hostage for 330 days, and murdered him. Says it all,” remarked a disgusted American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

“The Secretary-General not only has Israeli blood on his hands, but he has American blood on his hands, too. Since his ‘fig leaf’ meeting with the hostage families, he has done zero to help them,” said former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan.

“He could have demanded visits from the Red Cross; he could have condemned Hamas and held them to account, but, instead, he spent his time criticizing the law-abiding democracy of Israel instead of the ISIS-like terrorists,” Erdan told Fox News on Sunday.

“This is a new low, even for the Secretary-General. Even today, he wouldn’t condemn the evil Hamas terrorists, but. of course, you can’t condemn what you support,” Erdan said, dismissing Guterres as “morally bankrupt.”

In a further embarrassment to the United Nations, as well as the Biden administration, Hamas was holding its prisoners in Rafah — the city in Gaza that the U.N., President Joe Biden, and Vice President Kamala Harris heavily pressured Israel to stay away from. 

Hersh Goldberg-Polin, the only hostage Guterres mentioned by name, was the American that Hamas murdered on Friday. Goldberg-Polin, 23, was kidnapped by the terrorists during their heinous attack on the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023. 

The five Israeli hostages Guterres did not salute by name were 24-year-old Eden Yerushalmi, 25-year-old Ori Danino, 27-year-old Almog Sarusi, 32-year-old Alex Lobanov, and 40-year-old Carmel Gat. Yerushalmi and Gat were women. All but Gat were kidnapped from the Nova music festival; Gat was taken from a nearby kibbutz (communal village) in Israel.

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According to IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, all of the victims were shot multiple times by their Hamas captors “a short while before we reached them.”

“Their bodies were found during the fighting in Rafah in a tunnel about a kilometer away from the tunnel from which we rescued Farhan al-Qadi a few days ago,” Hagari said. 

Farhan al-Qadi is a 52-year-old Bedouin Arab Muslim and Israeli citizen who was rescued alive from a Hamas tunnel by Israeli special forces on Tuesday. Al-Qadi was one of six Bedouins whom Hamas kidnapped on October 7.

“Since Farhan was found, troops were given an emphasis on operating carefully even more than usual because of the understanding that additional hostages may be in the area,” Hagari said in his press conference on Sunday.