Israel’s foreign minister slammed the United Nations on Monday as the organization’s court opened a hearing on Israel’s legal responsibilities in Gaza.
Gidon Sa’ar said that the U.N. is a “rotten, anti-Israel, and antisemitic body,” which ought to be on trial for covering up terror affiliates within the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), who he said participated in the attacks of Oct. 7 2023. “The U.N. must answer for these crimes,” Sa’ar said.
He told reporters that Israel had decided “not to take part in this circus,” which is intended to deprive Israel of its “most basic right to defend itself.”
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“Secretary-General [Antonio] Guterres is personally accountable. He knew what was going on in UNRWA. He knew very well and he knows very well. Israel repeatedly warned him. He did nothing. He went out of his way to whitewash UNRWA. He continues to cover up the crimes of UNRWA and its terrorist employees.”
Jewish News Syndicate reported that Sa’ar later presented evidence that 25% of UNRWA staff “were implicated in terrorist activity” prior to Oct. 7, 2023. Sa’ar said that UNRWA is a proxy of the terror group Hamas.
Fox News Digital reached out to Guterres’ spokesperson seeking comment on Sa’ar’s accusations, but did not get a response.
In a statement to the press on Monday, Guterres’ spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, told a reporter that he didn’t “think the Secretary General is a big fan of a circus.” Calling the presentation to the ICJ “extremely detailed and very clear and very legal,” he also said that Guterres was “very clear [and] straightforward” when the U.N. “first revealed the Israeli allegations against UNRWA.” Dujarric said that UNRWA Commissioner-General Phillipe Lazzarini “took extremely quick action” responding to the complaints.
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Lazzarini terminated the appointments of some of the UNRWA staffers who participated in the Oct. 7 attacks.
Dujarric also noted the “depletion of critical stocks” in Gaza since Israel blocked all aid to Gaza in March in an attempt to force a ceasefire with Hamas. Not only is food running out, but Dujarric said that trauma-related medical supplies, surgical supplies, therapeutic milk, medicines, and other important items are in short supply.
In a statement regarding the ICJ hearings on April 28, U.N. Legal Counsel Elinor Hammarskjöld outlined the U.N.’s concerns about Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories. Referencing the Israeli Knesset’s law banning UNRWA’s operation, passed in October 2024, she stated that Israel cannot deny impartial humanitarian organizations from providing relief, and that concerns about the impartiality of such organizations may not be made unilaterally by an occupying power.
Hammarskjöld also said that U.N. premises are “inviolable,” per the Geneva Convention, and “immune from search, requisition, confiscation, expropriation, or any other form of interference.”
In February, however, the State of Israel’s statement on the ICJ’s proceedings noted various incidents that demonstrate how UNRWA has violated the guiding principles of “neutrality, impartiality, and independence” mandated by the U.N.
Israel’s statement also lays out a variety of times when terrorist organizations “use and exploit UNRWA installations as hideouts and places of refuge” and claims agency staff “have assisted or closed their eyes to terrorists seeking refuge at those sites.” The U.S. suspended aid to UNRWA after learning that some of its members participated in the Oct. 7 attack.
On April 24, the U.S. Justice Department determined that UNRWA, as a specialized agency of the U.N., is not entitled to diplomatic immunity in the U.S. In a lawsuit filed in June 2024 in the Southern District of New York, 100 victims of the Oct. 7 attack are seeking $1 billion in damages from UNRWA. Lazzarini is a named defendant in the suit.
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