UN chief Antonio Guterres said he needed to ‘set the record straight’ about remarks he made that incensed Israel and led to calls for his resignation.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres rejected the “misrepresentations” of his remarks a day earlier on Palestinian grievances that infuriated Israel.
“I am shocked by misrepresentations by some of my statement yesterday in the Security Council – as if I was justifying acts of terror by Hamas,” Guterres told reporters on Wednesday, without naming Israel.
Addressing a Security Council session on Tuesday, the UN chief, again without naming Israel, denounced “the clear violations of international humanitarian law that we are witnessing in Gaza”.
In remarks that especially outraged Israel, he said it was important to “recognise the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum” as the Palestinians have been “subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation”.
