Oct. 24 (UPI) — There are clear violations of international humanitarian law being committed in Israel’s war against Hamas, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Tuesday as he called for an immediate cease-fire.
Gutteres’ demands were met with calls for him to resign by Israel.
The U.N. head made the remarks during a Security Council open debate in New York City on the situation in the Middle East, where stability has been shaken since Hamas’ surprise Oct. 7 attack on Israel, and Israel’s retaliatory incessant bombing of the Palestinian enclave of the Gaza Strip.
More than 1,400 Israelis were killed and 220 kidnapped in the initial Hamas attack. The number of dead Palestinians rises daily amid Israel’s offensive, reaching more than 5,000 killed on Tuesday.
Guterres said that while the grievances of the Palestinian people do not justify Hamas’ appalling attacks, those same attacks “cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”
“Even war has rules,” he said, paramount of which is the protection of civilians.
Israel has ordered about 1.1 million northern Gazans to move to the southern half of the strip, a controversial directive ahead of a widely expected ground invasion.
Guterres said the protection of civilians does not include their evacuation to an area where there is no shelter, food, water, medicine and fuel for them, and where Israel is still bombing.
“The relentless bombardment of Gaza by Israeli forces, the level of civilian casualties, and the wholesale destruction of neighborhoods continue to mount and are deeply alarming,” he said.
“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.”
The speech attracted fierce criticism from Gilad Erdan, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, who described the secretary-general’s words as justification of terrorism and a delegitimization of the intergovernmental body he leads.
“The U.N. is failing,” Erdan said before family members of those kidnapped during a press conference in New York. “The U.N. is failing and you, Mr. S.G., have lost all morality and impartiality because when you say those terrible words that these heinous attacks ‘did not happen in a vacuum,’ you are tolerating terrorism and by tolerating terrorism you are justifying terrorism.”
Erdan accused Guterres of committing a “pure blood libel,” referring to the anti-Semitic false allegation that Jews murdered Christians to use their blood, and that he should apologize or resign.
“From now on, every day that he’s here in this building, unless he apologies immediately — today we called him to apologize — there’s no justification to the existence of this building,” Erdan said.
Guterres’ calls for a cease-fire add to those from other nations that participated in the Tuesday debate — a call Israel and the United States stand against.
In Washington, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby rejected the notion of a cease-fire, stating it would only benefit Hamas, though the United States supports a pause in the fighting to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.
“All I can tell you is we’re going to continue to make sure Israel has the tools and the capabilities that they need to defend themselves,” Kirby told reporters during a press conference. “We’re going to continue to try to get that humanitarian assistance in, and we’re going to continue to try to get hostages and people out of Gaza appropriately.”
