UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for a “humanitarian ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip stressing that Hamas’s attacks did not occur in a vacuum.
Speaking before the 15-member UN Security Council on Tuesday evening Guterres pleaded for civilians to be protected and warned that the fighting risked a wider conflagration in the region.
“It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum” Guterres said.
“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 added that “the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas. And those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”
Guterres also criticized Israel without naming it saying “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.”
