Israel rejects calls for a ceasefire and vows to ‘destroy’ Hamas.

Israel has once again pledged to destroy Hamas. In doing so, it rejected at a high-level UN meeting the calls for a ceasefire from the head of the United Nations, the Palestinians and many countries, stating that the war in Gaza was not just Gaza’s war, but “Israel’s war”. the free world’.

Foreign Minister Eli Cohen also rejected calls for “proportionality” in the country’s response to Hamas’ surprise attacks on Israel on October 7, which killed 1,400 people and have since resulted in more than 5,700 Palestinian deaths in the Gaza Strip, according to the Ministry. health.

“Tell me, what is an appropriate response to the killing of babies, to the rape and burning of women, to the beheading of a child?” he asked. “How can you make a truce with someone who has sworn to kill and destroy your existence?”

He told the UN Security Council that the appropriate response to the Oct. 7 massacre was “a complete destruction of the last Hamas,” calling the extremist group “the new Nazis.”

He added: “It is not just Israel’s right to destroy Hamas. It is our duty.’

Mr. Cohen called Hamas’s attacks “a wake-up call for the entire free world” against extremism and called on “the civilized world to stand united behind Israel to defeat Hamas.”

He warned that today it is Israel and that tomorrow Hamas and its attackers will be “on everyone’s doorstep,” starting with the West.

Mr. Cohen accused Qatar of financing Hamas and said the fate of more than 200 hostages kidnapped from Israel, some of whom attended the U.N. meeting, lay in the emir’s hands.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad al-Maliki called for an end to Israeli attacks.

“We are here today to stop the killing and put an end to the continued massacres carried out deliberately, systematically and brutally by the occupying Israel forces against the Palestinian civilian population,” he said.

“Every day and every night, more than two million Palestinians are on a survival mission.”

Under international law, he said, “it is our collective human duty to stop them.”

Mr al-Maliki warned that further attacks, killings, weapons and alliances would not make Israel safer: “Only peace will do that.”

“Those actively working to prevent a wider humanitarian catastrophe and regional spillovers must be clear that this can only be achieved by immediately ending Israel’s war against the Palestinian people in Gaza,” he said. “Stop the bloodshed.”

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres opened the monthly meeting on the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict – which has become a major event with ministers from the main warring parties and a dozen other countries flying to New York – warning: “The situation in the Middle East is getting worse by the hour.”

The UN chief said the risk of war spreading in the region is increasing as societies fragment and tensions threaten to boil over.

He called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire to deliver urgently needed food, water, medicine and fuel. He also called on “everyone to take a step back from the brink before the violence claims more lives and spreads further.”

Mr Guterres stressed that the rules of war must be respected.

He said the grievances of the Palestinian people could not justify the “heinous and unprecedented October 7 terrorist attacks” by Hamas in Israel and called for the immediate release of all hostages.

But Guterres also emphasized that “these heinous attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”

He expressed deep concern about “the clear violations of international humanitarian law” and described Israel’s continued bombardment of the Gaza Strip and the extent of the destruction and civilian casualties as “alarming.”

Protecting civilians “is of paramount importance in any armed conflict,” he said.

Without mentioning Hamas by name, the UN chief stressed that “protecting civilians should never mean using them as human shields.”

Mr. Guterres also criticized Israel without naming it, saying: “Protecting civilians does not mean ordering more than a million people to evacuate to the south, where there is no shelter, no food, no water, no medicines and no fuel. and then ‘continue to bomb the South itself.’

Mr Cohen criticized the Secretary General’s comments. After a reporter told him that Mr. Guterres stood by his statement, the Israeli minister said: “There is no reason for that and he is ashamed.”

Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan went further, particularly criticizing Mr. Guterres’ statement that it was important to recognize that “Hamas’ attacks did not take place in a vacuum.”

He accused the Secretary General of having lost “all morals and impartiality” and called for his resignation.

The US is pushing for the adoption of a resolution condemning Hamas’ attacks in Israel and violence against civilians and affirming Israel’s right to self-defense. There were some expectations that it would be voted on on Tuesday, but diplomats said it was still being negotiated.

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