Israel’s Ambassador to the Philippines Ilan Fluss on Thursday slammed the United Nations (UN) over its report on the war in Gaza that “made us look even worse than Hamas.”
In an interview on DAILY TRIBUNE’s Usapang OFW, Fluss was asked about the UN-backed inquiry that found Israel and the Palestinian Sunni-Islamic extremist group Hamas guilty of committing crimes against humanity.
Responding to host Chingbee Fernandez, Fluss said: “There was a report that came out yesterday from an inquiry committee of the UN Human Rights Council which made us look even worse than Hamas.”
“The UN is not new to us. The UN is controlled by an automatic majority which supports the Palestinians, which supports the Arabs with any anti-Israeli initiative that would pass through,” he said.
“For Israel, the UN is irrelevant. The UN outcomes for Israel are irrelevant,” he said.
Earlier this week, a report about the first moments of the war in Gaza was released which stated that both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes and grave violations of international law due to the significant number of civilian losses.
The inquiry was said to be the UN’s first
in-depth report following the surprise cross-border attack by Hamas on Israel on 7 October 2023, which left more than 1,200 people dead on the Jewish side.
The attack by Hamas sparked the ongoing war in Gaza.
According to Fluss, the UN-backed report is “not credible,” as he accused its authors of being anti-Semitic or hostile towards Jews.
“The three authors of the report, which came out yesterday in the midst of the Jewish holiday, didn’t even wait to give us time to respond. This was a Jewish holiday,” he said.
“They came out with a report yesterday. The three authors of this report are known to be anti-Semitic. They promote what we call BDS, which is the movement that calls for boycotting, divestment, and sanctions of Israel,” he added.
UN resolutions
Despite the release of the report, Fluss noted that the UN Security Council remained important for Israel.
He, however, highlighted the body’s “inability” to act on human rights abuses in other parts of the world.
“It is important to say that the UN Security Council is important. The UN is important, but currently, with the anti-Israeli resolutions, which are numerous across the board in any UN entity, Israel is the number one for country-specific resolutions,” he said.
“[There were] no resolutions on Syria, no resolutions on Iran, and what’s happening to human rights in Iran. You can talk about Russia and other countries, but Israel because it’s an easy target for them,” he said.
He continued: “All these bad sort of players find it’s easy to target Israel because Israel is basically alone. We’re not part of any group, we’re not part of the EU and, thank God, I have to say that.”
“When it comes to practical resolutions from the UN, such as those coming out of the Security Council, we have our strategic ally, the United States, standing with us. It’s important to note that.”
UN report
Based on the UN Commission on Inquiry’s report, Hamas committed crimes against humanity during its 7 October attack on Israel.
Hamas’ actions listed in the report included deliberately targeting civilians, committing murder, torture, inhumane treatment, violations of personal dignity, and hostage-taking, including of children.
It likewise highlighted Hamas’ “mistreatment of civilians and IDF members in several locations, and significant evidence of the desecration of corpses, including sexualized desecration, decapitation, lacerations, burning, severing of body parts and undressing.”
The commission also indicated that Israel has displaced at least 1.7 million Palestinians.