Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz slammed Martin Griffiths, under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator at the United Nations, on Thursday for describing the Hamas terrorist organization as a “political movement.”
“The United Nations reaches a new low every day. The under-secretary-general of the United Nations rejects the fact that the Nazi terrorist organization Hamas is a terrorist organization ... and the secretary-general of the United Nations continues to play dumb,” tweeted Katz.
“We will eliminate Hamas with or without them. Jewish blood is not cheap,” Katz vowed.
“Shame on him,” the Jewish state’s top diplomat added in English.
Griffiths told Sky News anchor Yalda Hakim in a Wednesday interview that “Hamas is not a terrorist group, for us [the U.N.], of course, as you know, it’s a political movement.”
“I’ve worked with many, many, many different terrorist and insurgent groups. ... I think it’s very, very difficult to dislodge these groups without a negotiated solution, which includes their aspirations,” the British diplomat said.
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
— ישראל כ”ץ Israel Katz (@Israel_katz) February 15, 2024
The United States designated Hamas as a foreign terrorist organization in 1995. Numerous other countries and international organizations have likewise enacted sanctions against the terrorist group, including Australia, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom and the European Union.
Hamas openly seeks to destroy Israel in its entirety and replace it with a Palestinian-Islamic state. Article 13 of its charter states that “there is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad.”
The 1988 charter also states that “our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious.” It quotes Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, as saying: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”
Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh repeated his desire to annihilate the Jewish state early last year, saying that “all of Palestine, from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea, and from Ras al-Naquora [Rosh Hanikra on the Israel-Lebanon border] to Umm al-Rashrash [Eilat, Israel’s southernmost city], is one land that is indivisible and cannot be sold or bargained.”
Hamas terrorists murdered around 1,200 people in a mass attack launched from the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, which included the firing of thousands of rockets, the infiltration of the Jewish state by around 3,000 terrorists and the abduction of 253 hostages.
