The war be­tween Is­rael and Hamas is now fac­ing a very dif­fi­cult diplo­mat­ic im­broglio with charge and counter-charge be­tween the Unit­ed Na­tions Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al An­to­nio Guter­res and Is­rael, through its rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the UN, Gi­lad Er­dan.

“I con­demned un­equiv­o­cal­ly the hor­ri­fy­ing and un­prece­dent­ed Oc­to­ber 7 acts of ter­ror by Hamas in Is­rael,” said the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al, in a state­ment to the Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil pre­lim­i­nary to call­ing for a hu­man­i­tar­i­an cease­fire be­tween the two sides. He was sure that “noth­ing can jus­ti­fy the de­lib­er­ate killing, in­jur­ing and kid­nap­ping of civil­ians or the launch­ing of rock­ets against civil­ian tar­gets.”

The Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al went on to con­tex­tu­alise the war, stat­ing that the “Pales­tin­ian peo­ple have been sub­ject­ed to 56 years of suf­fo­cat­ing oc­cu­pa­tion. They have seen their land steadi­ly de­voured and plagued by vi­o­lence; their econ­o­my sti­fled; their peo­ple dis­placed, and their homes de­mol­ished. And their hopes for a po­lit­i­cal so­lu­tion to their plight have been van­ish­ing.”

The re­buke from Is­rael was im­me­di­ate and sharp: “The UN is fail­ing, and you, Mr Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al, have lost all moral­i­ty and im­par­tial­i­ty, be­cause when you say those ter­ri­ble words that these heinous at­tacks did not hap­pen in a vac­u­um, you are tol­er­at­ing ter­ror­ism, and by tol­er­at­ing ter­ror­ism you are jus­ti­fy­ing it,” said Is­rael’s Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the UN, Gi­lad Er­dan.

“He (the SG) must re­sign im­me­di­ate­ly; we call on him to re­sign, be­cause un­less he re­signs there is no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the ex­is­tence of this build­ing,” the vis­i­bly an­gry Is­raeli rep­re­sen­ta­tive de­mand­ed, re­fer­ring to the UN head­quar­ters in New York.

“I am shocked by the mis­in­ter­pre­ta­tion by some, of my state­ment at the Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, as if I were jus­ti­fy­ing acts of ter­ror by Hamas; it was a com­plete op­po­site,” Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Guter­res coun­tered.

“I be­lieved it was nec­es­sary to set the record straight, es­pe­cial­ly out of re­spect to the vic­tims and to their fam­i­lies,” he said.

Por­tu­gal, the home coun­try of Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Guter­res, and Ger­many have tak­en his side with dif­fer­ing opin­ions else­where.

In his in­ter­ven­tion, US Sec­re­tary of State Antony Blinken said, “We can­not go back to the sta­tus quo with Hamas be­ing in a po­si­tion to re­peat what it did.” He added that “Is­rael has ab­solute­ly no in­ten­tion to gov­ern Gaza again.”

The diplo­mat­ic con­test is demon­strat­ing the un­ceas­ing anger of Is­rael, and its in­ten­tion not to re­lent. Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu has promised ground at­tacks to wipe out the mil­i­tant Hamas, which ini­ti­at­ed this round of bru­tal killing of in­no­cents both in south­ern Is­rael and Gaza in Pales­tine.

Out­side of Is­rael, much de­pends on the Unit­ed States and Eu­rope, who sup­port the Jew­ish state with­out qual­i­fi­ca­tion. The call is for a hu­man­i­tar­i­an cease­fire to al­low life-sav­ing food, fu­el and med­i­cine in­to Gaza for the two mil­lion Pales­tini­ans trapped there.

The de­mand from Is­rael and its West­ern al­lies is for Hamas to free the es­ti­mat­ed 200 civil­ian hostages it now holds. Con­tin­u­a­tion of the war will re­sult in ad­di­tion­al slaugh­ter of Pales­tini­ans and a huge rush of refugees in­to neigh­bour­ing Arab states. A num­ber of those states have said host­ing refugees is not the so­lu­tion.

The in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty now has the wars be­tween Rus­sia and Ukraine, and that of Hamas and Is­rael to re­solve. They por­tend world dis­as­ter.