The accusations came after Antonio Guterres invoked Article 99 of the United Nations Charter for the first time since becoming UN Secretary-General in 2017. It says that the Secretary General “may draw the attention of the Council [de Segurança] on any matter which, in his opinion, may jeopardize the maintenance of peace and security throughout the world.” Antonio Guterres in a letter called on the Council to “make every effort to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe” in the Gaza Strip, reiterating its calls for a ceasefire that would have “potentially irreversible consequences” for the Palestinians.
For the Israeli ambassador to the UN, Guterres’ call for a ceasefire is, in essence, “a call to maintain the Hamas regime of terror in the Gaza Strip.” Gilad Erdan believes that the Secretary General should “explicitly point out Hamas’s responsibility for the situation and call on the terrorist leaders to surrender and return the hostages, thereby ending the war.” Despite the accusations, the letter explicitly calls for the “immediate and unconditional release” of hostages kidnapped by radical Islamists.