UN Secretary-General António Guterres addressed world leaders at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday and focused on the war in Gaza. “We must not lose track of the devastating situation in the occupied ‘Palestinian’ territory,” he said. According to Guterres, “Nearly three years have passed since the abhorrent terrorist attacks by Hamas on October 7. What followed was an assault on ‘Palestinians’ in Gaza, with a scale of killing and destruction I have not seen in all my years as Secretary-General.”
Guterres added: “Meanwhile, violence, displacement, and settlement expansion in the occupied ‘West Bank’ (Judea and Samaria) are destroying the path to peace and raising concerns of ethnic cleansing. We cannot allow the two-state solution to disappear before our eyes.”
Criticism of Guterres also came from Ukrainian social media users, who were furious that he devoted only 2-3 sentences to Russia while speaking at length about Gaza. Beyond that, critics slammed Guterres for placing the war against Ukraine in the same category as Ukrainian responses against Putin’s energy infrastructure, saying both “endanger food and energy supplies around the world.”