Minister blasts Secretary-General as wrong for saying Hamas attack 'didn't happen in a vacuum'

Minister blasts Secretary-General as wrong for saying Hamas attack 'didn't happen in a vacuum'

- Nicholas Cecil 

THE British government firmly sided with Israel today against the United Nations' chief after he claimed violations of humanitarian law were being committed in Gaza and that "the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum".

Home Office minister Robert Jenrick said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres should retract his comments if they were intended to partly blame Israel for Hamas's mass slaughter of civilians on October 7.

"If he is referring to what has happened over the course of the last two weeks, we don't believe that Israel has broken international law," Mr Jenrick told Sky News. "There is a clear right in international law for a nation to defend itself and that is what Israel is doing.

"We do want to see Israel, wherever practicable and it's immensely difficult to do, to surgically degrade and eradicate Hamas. That is what they are trying to do." Speaking later to LBC Radio, Mr Jenrick toughened his language, suggesting Mr Guterres should retract his comments which were “wrong”.