UN chief slammed for not condemning Hamas terrorists in statement on murdered US and Israeli hostages

JERUSALEM - The Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, is facing a barrage of criticism for failing to explicitly condemn the Hamas terrorist movement for its murders of one American and five Israeli citizens on Saturday.

Israel Defense Forces were looking to rescue the six hostages held by Hamas, including Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, in the tunnel system below Gaza's Rafah city, but instead found all six murdered at the hands of the terror group. The Times of Israel, quoting Israel's ministry of health, reported that the hostages had been murdered between Thursday and Friday morning. 

Guterres wrote on X, "I will never forget my meeting last October with the parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin and other hostage families. 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."

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Guterres’ post on X sparked criticism from Israel's former U.N. ambassador Gilad Erdan for playing down the severity of the murders by labeling the news as merely "tragic" and not condemning Hamas outright. 

Guterres’ spokesman did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital press query.

Erdan, who only left his role as ambassador last month, told Fox News Digital , "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. 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 continued "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. Hamas terrorists can rely on a morally bankrupt Secretary General for their survival whose only actions are meaningless photo-ops with hostage families, and criticism of Israel, while innocent hostages are being executed in cold blood."

Thousands of Israelis gathered in Ra'anana to pay their final respects to Almog Sarusi. Hamas abducted the 26-year-old sound and light technician from the Nova Music Festival and killed him in captivity. Israeli soldiers recovered his body along with five others on Saturday.  (Yossi Zeliger/TPS-IL)

Anne Bayefsky, director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust and the president of Human Rights Voices, told Fox News Digital that "U.N. Secretary-General Guterres despicably now turns the cold-blooded murder of Israeli hostages by Palestinian terrorists into a win for the terrorists. He refuses to name the perpetrators. And equates their horrible deliberate execution with Israel's effort to release them."

She added "The United Nations top apparatus - its Security Council, General Assembly, and Human Rights Council - has never specifically condemned Hamas. U.N. denial of the right of Israeli self-defense and its promotion of violence against the people of Israel has never been more clear. No amount of U.N. photo-ops with hostages or their families will erase the reality of the U.N.'s insidious role in the nightmare of war in Israel for seven decades."

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TOPSHOT - U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks during a United Nations Security Council meeting on Gaza, at UN headquarters in New York City on December 8, 2023. Guterres said on December 8, 2023, that Hamas' brutality could never justify "collective punishment" of Palestinians as Israel presses its campaign against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.  (Photo by YUKI IWAMURA/AFP via Getty Images)

In October, Erdan urged Guterres to resign after he claimed that the head of the world body had suggested that Israel was to blame for Hamas’ October 7 massacre that resulted in the murders of nearly 1,200 people, including more than 30 American citizens, and the kidnapping of over 250 people. Guterres came out to refute Erdan's charges, but the United Nations has long been seen by critics as a bastion of antisemitism and anti-Israel bias.

A bloodied handprint stains a wall in a Nir Oz house after Hamas terrorists attacked this kibbutz days earlier near the border of Gaza. (Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images)

On Guterres’ watch, a number of U.N. agencies have been embroiled in scandals where they showed sympathy for Hamas. The scandal-plagued United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is facing a lawsuit in Manhattan for its alleged role in aiding the terrorist movement Hamas’ slaughter on October 7.

Hillel Neuer, the executive director of UN Watch, lambasted Guterres’ decision to not name the perpetrators of the mass murder of the six people. "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?," wrote Neuer in a post on X.

Hamas is not on the United Nations' list of terrorist organizations. Fox News Digital sent press queries to Israel’s current U.N. ambassador and the country's foreign ministry.

Benjamin Weinthal reports on Israel, Iran, Syria, Turkey and Europe. You can follow Benjamin on Twitter @BenWeinthal, and email him at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.