Guterres made the comments in an interview with Reuters Editor-in-Chief Alessandra Galloni at the news agency’s NEXT conference in New York.
“I think there was something fundamentally wrong in the way this operation was conducted with total neglect in relation to the deaths of civilians and to the destruction of Gaza,” Guterres said.
“The objective was to destroy Hamas. Gaza is destroyed, but Hamas is not yet destroyed. So there is something fundamentally wrong with the way this is conducted,” he added.
When asked if he believed Israeli forces may be guilty of carrying out war crimes since the conflict began more than two years ago, Guterres stated that “there are strong reasons to believe that that possibility might be a reality”.
In October 2024, then-Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, now the defence minister, declared Guterres “persona non grata”, accusing him of giving “backing to terrorists, rapists, and murderers” for failing to condemn Iran’s missile attack.
More than 70,000 people have died in Gaza since October 7, 2023, when Israeli forces launched an all-out assault in response to a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that saw more than 1,200 people killed and 251 taken captive.
A fragile United States-brokered ceasefire – a 20-point peace plan pushed by US President Donald Trump – has been in place since October 10. But Israeli forces have repeatedly violated the truce with strikes and demolitions, claiming to be targeting Hamas infrastructure in Gaza.
According to Gaza’s authorities, Israeli troops have violated the ceasefire at least 591 times since it came into effect, killing at least 360 Palestinians and wounding 922 others.
