The Palestinian Foreign Ministry condemned, in a press release on Wednesday, the Israeli representative at the UN Gilad Erdan’s brutal attack on the head of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres. Erdan had called on Guterres to resign from his position during the UNGA meeting in a tweet.
The Palestinian Ministry stated that this attack is unjustified and it is an extension of Israel’s violations of the Charter and the United Nations resolutions on the Palestinian issue.
The same release praised the role that Guterres plays in this conflict resolution and his efforts for de-escalation and population transfer, along with his advocacy for allowing humanitarian aid into the region.
On Tuesday, at the UN Security Council convened to discuss the war between Hamas and Israel, Guterres declared, “We must also realize that the Hamas attacks did not come out of nowhere. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.”
He added that the situation of the Palestinian people does not justify the Hamas attacks, just as these retaliatory assaults do not justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.
Reacting to these remarks, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen declared that he will not be meeting with the UN Secretary-General.
Erdan tweeted on Platform X that the Secretary-General shows sympathy for the campaign of mass murder of children, women and the elderly, and is therefore not fit to lead the UN, and he called on him to resign immediately.
In a further measure of vindictive retaliation, Israel’s envoy to the UN indicated that–as tensions rise between the two entities–Israel will not be issuing visas to UN employees.