Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, on Tuesday called on UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to resign.
The envoy accused Guterres of “expressing an understanding” for the attacks Hamas carried in Israel on October 7.
In comments to the United Nations Security Council earlier Tuesday, Guterres called for an immediate cease-fire and decried “clear violations of international humanitarian law that we are witnessing in Gaza.”
He said Palestinians had been subjected to decades of occupation, before adding: “It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum.”
“The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation. They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced and their homes demolished. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing,” Guterres said.
Israel was outraged by Guterres’s comments. UN envoy Gilad Erdan called them “shocking,” and demanded that the secretary general resign. Foreign Minister Eli Cohen cancelled a meeting with Guterres, and Minister Benny Gantz labeled the UN chief a “terror apologist.”
“The UN Secretary-General, who shows understanding for the campaign of mass murder of children, women, and the elderly, is not fit to lead the UN. I call on him to resign immediately,” Erdan posted on X.
