The angry reaction of Israeli politicians was caused by a statement by the head of the UN humanitarian affairs agency, Martin Griffiths, who said in an interview that Hamas “is not a terrorist organization, but a political movement.”
“Shame on him,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz wrote on X, with his post accompanied by a screenshot of Griffiths’ interview with the British Sky News network. Katz called Hamas a “Nazi organization.”
The @UNReliefChief denies that the Nazi organization Hamas is a terrorist organization and calls it a «political movement». Shame on him. pic.twitter.com/piK1paMiRK
— Israel Katz (@Israel_katz) February 15, 2024
Griffiths, head of the UN’s humanitarian affairs agency, who holds the position of deputy secretary-general, said in an interview with Sky News yesterday: “Hamas is not a terrorist organization for us of course, as you know. It’s a political movement.”
Griffiths, who spoke of his years of experience in Cambodia and Syria, described the situation in the Gaza Strip as the worst he had seen. “The reason I said the situation in the Gaza Strip is the worst, was because people cannot escape. They are locked out,” he said.
Asked about Israel’s plan to eliminate Hamas, Griffiths stressed that it would be “very difficult to eliminate these organizations without a negotiated solution that includes their aspirations.”
In a post on X, Griffiths clarified that Hamas is not on the list of organizations designated as terrorist by the US.the United Nations Security Council, without diminishing the seriousness of the October 7 attacks.
Just to clarify: Hamas is not on the list of groups designated as terrorist organizations by the United Nations Security Council.
This doesn’t make their acts of terror on 7 October any less horrific and reprehensible, as I’ve been saying all along.
— Martin Griffiths (@UNReliefChief) February 15, 2024
Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, told X: “The UN’s pro-Hamas stance is finally being revealed on live TV.”
He described the UN as “a terror-justifying, Hamas-promoting, victim-blaming organization that has lost all credibility” and accused Griffiths of being “an accomplice of terrorism”.
The UN’s pro-Hamas stance is finally exposed on live TV. In the words of a UN Under-Secretary-General “Hamas is NOT a terrorist group for us, it’s a political movement.”
Is the brutal murder of hundreds of civilians, not terror?
Is the systematic rape of women not terror?
Is… pic.twitter.com/IDGBahkpw3— Ambassador Gilad Erdan (@giladerdan1) February 15, 2024
The US and the EU label Hamas a terrorist organization.
Source: RES-MPE
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