The head of the UN, Antonio Guterres, made this statement to the Security Council on Tuesday “clear violations of humanitarian law” in Gaza, unleashing the wrath of Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen.

“No party to a conflict is above international humanitarian law,” Guterres said, after recalling that even war “has rules.”

He UN chief condemned Islamist group Hamas for October 7 attack on Israeli territory that left 1,400 dead. the majority civilians, but at the same time he said that “it is important to recognize” that these attacks “did not take place in a vacuum.”

Subjected to “56 years of suffocating occupation,” the Palestinian people “have had their land endlessly devoured by settlements and ravaged by violence; its economy was suffocating; the population was displaced and the houses were demolished. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight are gone,” Guterres recalled before a busy and divided high-level Security Council.

“Mr. Secretary General, what world do you live in?” Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen snapped at him after reminding him that Israel “has not only the right to defend itself, but also the obligation to do so.”

“Without a doubt, it is not ours,” was answered after showing photos of Hamas attacks on civilians. In a statement to the press, accompanied by relatives of some of the two hundred hostages captured by Hamas, he assured that he had canceled the planned meeting with Guterres.

The Guterres’ words also angered Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, who called for his immediate resignation on his X account (formerly Twitter). because, according to him, those words justify the attacks on civilians because “they show understanding for this campaign of mass murders of children, women and the elderly.”

Erdan then said that his country will be forced to “rethink” its relationship with the UN: “We have been complaining for a long time about the way the UN and its representatives in Israel are acting, distorting reality. They do not report what is really happening, they take things out of context, they refuse to verify our reports of terrorist attacks (…) and they take the words of Hamas as if they were the word of God,” Erdan complained.

Today the UN Security Council held an open debate on the situation in Gaza and 86 speakers had registered for the programme, from countries and regional groups – including more than twenty ministers – an example of how the Palestinian conflict has returned. center of world geopolitics.

Armistice

Tunisia summoned the ambassadors of the five permanent member states of the United Nations Security Council to call for “immediate” action from the international community in light of the Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip.

The United States does not want a ceasefire because President Joe Biden assures that this would only serve to strengthen the Hamas militia. However, he proposed humanitarian pauses to expedite the access of aid to Gaza territory. Homeland Security spokesman John Kirby emphasized that “will only talk” of this possibility once they are released 200 people those follow from hostages of this Palestinian militia.

“2 billion Arabs and Muslims”

For Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al Maliki, the inaction of the The Security Council’s failure to adopt a single resolution on the conflict between Israel and Hamas since 2016 is ‘inexcusable’.

“Is your human conscience not wounded by the crimes of the Israeli occupation during 56 years of colonial occupation, or by the terrorist killings, destruction and hunger to which the Palestinian people are subjected today?” he said.

The Security Council should “take a clear position to reassure the two billion Arabs and Muslims that international law will prevail” and work toward a “true peace process” based on the “two-state” solution, he recalled. Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi.

Last week, the Security Council failed to reach agreement on one of two resolution texts on the table, proposed by Russia and Brazil. The first did not mention Hamas, and the second did not recognize Israel’s right to defend itself and was vetoed by the United States.

A third text, drafted by the Americans, is circulating among member states and states “the right of all states to individual or collective self-defense.”

But Russia’s ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, recalled that the US text does not contain any “call for a rapid and unconditional ceasefire” in the conflict, and that his country, which has veto power, “will therefore not support it.”

Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira, whose country hosted this debate as president of the organization, recalled that “civilians must be respected and protected at all times and in all places” and emphasized that all military operations “follow the principles of distinction , proportionality, humanity, necessity and precaution.”

His Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry asked: “What right (to self-defense) justifies not making a distinction between an enemy to be killed and unarmed civilians?”

Humanitarian crisis

The UN chief also demanded an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” to alleviate the “epic suffering” of the people of Gaza and “without restrictions”.

UN fuel supplies in Gaza “will run out within days,” which would be “another disaster” because without fuel aid cannot be delivered, hospitals have no electricity and drinking water cannot be treated or pumped, he recalled .

Since the Hamas attacks, Israel’s Defense Ministry has imposed a blockade on all imports of goods, including cutting off electricity, water, food and fuel, and bombed the area, causing the deaths of more than 5,000 people, according to Gaza authorities has caused. , including more than 2,000 children, and the destruction of 42% of homes, as well as numerous infrastructures.

About 1.4 million people have been displaced in the small area, recalled Lynn Hastings, UN humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territories.

A meeting of the UN General Assembly is scheduled for Thursday to debate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, although a resolution is not currently expected to be voted on, which would in any case not be binding. (JO)