By Rajika Chauhan
Staff Writer
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has come under fire in recent days after statements made at a meeting of the U.N. Security Council in New York last Tuesday. In a speech to the council, he issued a condemnation of Hamas’s attacks on the Israel border on Oct. 7, which left more than 1,400 dead and 222 taken as hostages, the majority of them civilians, in estimates made by Reuters. His statement also included a rebuke of Israel’s retaliatory measures in the days since the initial attacks, expressing concerns regarding the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Long standing tensions between Israel and Palestine erupted following the early October attacks with more fervor than in the last 50 years, as claimed by some experts. Palestinian-based terrorist organization Hamas conducted a series of raids and attacks on Israel’s border communities and army bases on Oct. 7, marking the deadliest recorded day in Israeli history. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately issued a declaration of war, with the intent of eradicating the grounds of Hamas operation in Gaza, as per the BBC. Israeli authorities declared a siege of Gaza, with blockades on food, water, fuel and electricity. Airstrikes have been conducted targeting the strip in the past several weeks, with a ground invasion yet to begin.
With more than hundreds of airstrikes being conducted within a single day, Israel’s operations in Gaza have dramatically worsened an already fraught humanitarian crisis in the region, compounding the suffering of Palestinians who have been living under a strict blockade since 2007. Politico reports that Hamas militants have developed an extensive underground network of tunnels to hide members and hostages, as well as funnel fuel and resources free from Israeli surveillance. Israel aims to destroy these tunnels in its mission against Hamas, but the majority are located under large centers of civilian population, such as schools, hospitals and mosques. The Israeli attacks have thus resulted in a death toll of more than 8,000 Palestinians and over 2,000 of them children, as reported by the Gazan Health Ministry. This number has been contested by both Israel and the United States, although major humanitarian agencies have reported that they are reliable.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency is the U.N. agency responsible for aiding Palestinian refugees in Gaza, and reports that it has been forced to scale back its operations significantly with dwindling fuel reserves. The BBC reports that 38 staff members have been killed since Oct. 7, and humanitarian supplies have been insufficient to address the food and resource needs of citizens.
The World Health Organization has also warned that 12 of the 35 hospitals in Gaza are beyond functioning. Approximately 12 trucks of supplies have been crossing into the region per day, as compared to nearly 500 trucks per day in the time before the crisis began. A strict blockade around the Gaza Strip has left civilians and aid workers with few points of access for supplies or escape.
Guterres echoed concerns by other world leaders in his statements on Tuesday, stating, “Protecting civilians does not mean ordering more than one million people to evacuate to the south, where there is no shelter, no food, no water, no medicine and no fuel, and then continuing to bomb the south itself."
Guterres called for Israel to consider a ceasefire and allow time for essential humanitarian aid to reach the Gaza Strip, but his statements attempting to provide context to the issue have been subject to intense criticism. As cited by Reuters, he explained that the “the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum” and that “the Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.”
Guterres’s words were lambasted by Israeli officials for a supposed justification of the attacks of Oct. 7. Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., Gildan Erdan, called the speech “shocking” in a message on X: “There is no justification or point in talking to those who show compassion for the most terrible atrocities committed against the citizens of Israel and the Jewish people.”
Israeli foreign minister Eli Cohen similarly rebuked Guterres and stated that he would no longer meet with the U.N. Chief. Both Erdan and Cohen have called for a resignation, as per Politico.
Erdan was quoted on Wednesday as having informed Israeli news website Ynet that U.N. Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths, would be denied an Israeli visa in apparent retaliation for Guterres’ words:
“He will not be able to come here to the region,” Erdan said. “Their agencies constantly need to bring in new people, certainly at a time like now. They will be refused."
Guterres stood by his initial statements and rejected the supposed misconstruing of his words on Wednesday: “I am shocked by misrepresentations by some of my statement yesterday…as if I was justifying acts of terror by Hamas. This is false.”
The BBC reports that U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and the Palestinian Authority’s foreign minister Riyad al-Maliki both issued statements at the same meeting as Guterres, making similar calls for an increase in humanitarian aid to Gaza and a show of restraint in airstrikes from Gaza.
While stopping short of calling for a ceasefire, world leaders such as Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron have warned against a ground invasion of Gaza, as well as made recommendations for a humanitarian pause, according to reporting by the BBC.
This limited consensus by the international community appears not to have been heeded by Israel, with Netanyahu declaring entry into a new phase of war on Saturday. Vox reports that combat forces began a ground assault on Friday night local time, in what is likely to be a phased operation, with progressive increases in the soldiers pushed into Gaza over time.
Details regarding the specifics of the operation have been difficult to obtain due to restrictions on cell service and internet in Gaza, as well as vague reporting by the Israel Defense Forces. Despite calls for caution, Israel is at the moment moving forward with its declared intentions of eliminating Hamas, which some say is a mission becoming increasingly conflated with the destruction of Gaza as a whole.
