NETANYAHU HAS NOT RETURNED SEC GENERAL’S CALLS FOR 3 MONTHS
January 18, 2024In a riveting interview with James Bays, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reveals that Prime Minister Netanyahu has not returned his calls for over three months demonstrating Netanyahu and Israel’s complete disrespect for the Secretary General and the institution of the UN.
Guterres also confronts the profound challenges and moral dilemmas surrounding the Israel-Gaza conflict. The staggering death toll, with 24,000 lives lost, prompts a probing question about legal accountability for the deaths of 152 UN workers. Guterres, visibly moved, reflects on the complexity of managing an organization where staff members were killed, many with their families in their homes.
Guterres stresses the paramount importance of ensuring a substantial scale of humanitarian aid delivery and calls for Israel to remove obstacles hindering aid distribution. Acknowledging the need for a humanitarian ceasefire, he grapples with the immense humanitarian crisis and its toll on innocent civilians.
WATCH FULL INTERVIEW & SHARE YOUR OPINION.
Credits: @ DmodosCutter on X
If you advocate for TRUTH & JUSTICE, SHARE to spread the knowledge.
#ceasefirenow #FreePalestine #Interfaith #StandWithUs #Truth #Palestine #Gaza #Humanrights #Israel #فلسطين #اسرائیل #غزة
English Script:
James Bays: When you look at the death toll, 24,000 people at least have died in Gaza. About half of them are women and children. And your own staff, 152 U.N. workers have died. As their boss, as their employer, with a duty of care for them. Do you think there should be legal accountability for their deaths?
Antonio Guterres: Well, first of all, you can’t imagine what it is to manage an organization in which 152 of our workers have been killed and some of them have been killed with their families in their own houses. And I think there will be a moment in which we will need to look seriously into that question. At the present moment, our most important duty is to make sure that humanitarian aid is delivered at a much larger scale than it is the case now, and that Israel removes the obstacles that still exist to have a massive distribution of humanitarian aid, knowing for that to be really effective, we need a humanitarian cease fire.
James Bays: It’s not just U.N. workers. You look at journalists, 82 journalists and media workers killed. Do you fear? Do you suspect Israel is deliberately targeting journalists and other thought leaders in Gaza?
Antonio Guterres: I think there is a way this war has been conducted in which there has been no effective protection of civilians. I think there are violations of international humanitarian law. And indeed, I’ve been saying time and time again, and now it has been proven by, for instance, the report of Oxfam and a few others. These is unprecedented. The number of civilian casualties that is taking place in Gaza, especially if you look into all the other conflicts that we had seen, since I am Secretary general, the number of civilian casualties per day is unprecedented in any other conflict that we have witnessed until now, since I am Secretary general.
James Bays: Who should run Gaza when the war is over?
Antonio Guterres: I believe that when the war is over and after a period of transition, that will be necessary because I don’t see the Palestinian Authority entering Gaza with the Israeli army in Gaza. But I believe it should be a reinvigorated Palestinian Authority. And in the context of the creation of the solution that we all need, which is finally a Palestinian state, a two state solution with full guarantees of security for the state of Israel, but also with the recognition of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.
James Bays: You say a two state solution, but let’s be honest, Secretary General, you’ve listened to Prime Minister Netanyahu over the years. You know what his government stands for. You’re dealing with an Israeli government that doesn’t believe in a two state solution.
Antonio Guterres: Well, things change. And I believe that, unfortunately, politicians tend to sometimes to transform opportunities into problems. But I think that this is the moment to transform this dramatic problem into an opportunity for a solution for the Israeli people and the Palestinian people. And the solution for the Israeli people and the Palestinian people will not be possible if we have not, the existence of two states living in peace and security between the two.
James Bays: How are relations between the U.N. and Israel? Because your spokesman described them recently in the last 24 hours as complex and challenging. For example, how many times have you spoken to Prime Minister Netanyahu since October?
Antonio Guterres: I have asked to speak to Prime Minister Netanyahu. Until now, that phone call has not been…
James Bays: In three months. He hasn’t spoken to you…
Antonio Guterres: I’ve been talking to other people and I can tell you that we are working with Israel based on the interests of the Israeli people and the interests of the Palestinian people. And nothing will make us move away from that principle.
Related News
