Israel’s permanent ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, said his country was not waging a war “with Palestinians” but with Hamas, adding that the terrorist organisation does not care about Palestinian people, peace or dialogue.

Invoking the deadly coordinated attacks by Hamas terrorists on unarmed civilians in southern Israel on October 7, Erdan, during his address at the special session of the UN General Assembly, said the ‘massacre’ had nothing to do with the Palestinians.

“Every member State here today who is convinced that we are above to discuss yet another round of conflict in the Middle East another dispute between Israel and the Palestinians is wrong,” he said.

“The October 7th Massacre and what ensued has nothing to do with the Palestinians, nothing. It has nothing to do with the Arab-Israeli conflict or the Palestinian question. This is not a war with the Palestinians. Israel is at war with the genocidal jihadist Hamas terror organization only. It is the law-abiding democracy of Israel against modern-day Nazis,” he added.

The envoy noted further that Hamas has only one goal, which is to murder every single Jew.

“Hamas do not care about the Palestinian people. They do not care about peace or dialogue. Hamas has only one goal to annihilate Israel and murder every single Jew on the face of the Earth,” Erdan said.

Raising the “brutal killings” of Israeli civilians by Hamas and the “intentional targeting” of Israeli medical teams that were trying to help the injured during the terror attack, Erdan said his country will continue combating the “genocidal terrorists committed to Israel’s destruction”.

“We will not rest until Hamas is obliterated and our hostages are returned home and we will bring them home,” he added.

“Israel’s mission is to eradicate this evil from the earth eradicate. ISIS was the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and Hamas is the Islamic State of Gaza. So, just as was done with ISIS, Hamas must be no more,” Israel’s permanent envoy to the UN stated further.

“Our goal is to completely eradicate Hamas’s capabilities and we will use every means at our disposal to accomplish this. Not for Revenge, no not for retaliation no but to ensure that such depravity such atrocities never occur again. Israel is at the forefront of the war on radical jihadist terror and if Israel doesn’t succeed in obliterating Hamas’s Terror capabilities. The whole world will pay the price,” he added.

Erdan also showed a video clip that he claimed showed the brutal decapitation with a garden tool of a helpless agricultural worker from Thailand.

He turned the screen of the tablet towards the delegates for them to see the purported beheading of a foreign national by Hamas terrorists.

“On October 7, it became clear to the entire world that Hamas’s Charter was not a compilation of empty words it was an action plan. Imagine, a bright sunny day clear skies, music in the air, young people are dancing ….a concert for Peace, yes for peace It is really it is early morning on the holy Shabbat, the sun is just risen to mark a new day it is also a festive Jewish High holiday Simchat Torah means the joy of the Torah where we celebrate the book of of books our Holy Bible and then in one split second this Idyllic Eden became hell on Earth,” the Israeli envoy to the UN said.

“The peaceful morning air was pierced with the whale of rocket sirens. I’m telling you thousands of Hamas mortars and rockets rain down indiscriminately on many Israeli cities and villages but the buckets were only covered for the …, the …that followed barbarian Hamas terrorists invaded Israel from the sea the land and the air they came with one purpose only to savagely murder every living thing they encountered,” he added.

Meanwhile, weighing in on the ongoing war on Hamas, Jordan’s Deputy Prime Minister Ayman Safadi said “there is no room for grey areas”, adding that the Israeli government have cabinet members who call for “wiping out Palestinians from the face of this Earth.”

He said Israel was making Gaza “hell on earth”, adding, “We must stand for peace, our human values and the UN Charter.”

“History will judge us. Say no to war. Say no to the killing. Call out war crimes,” Safadi stated.

Calling on Israel to uphold values, he said, “The right to self-defence is not a right to impunity; Israel cannot remain above the land”, adding, “Let the guns go silent and let the will to live and let live prevail. Let’s restore faith in the peace process as the only path to ending this conflict once and for all.”

“Let’s make a collective cry, a cry out against more bloodletting. Let’s unite for peace. Make a stand for peace, make a stand for life, make it clear, make it firm,” the Jordanian deputy PM added.

He also called for a moment of silence for all the civilians who have lost their lives during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

Slovakia’s new populist Prime Minister Robert Fico said Thursday that his government was stopping military aid to Ukraine, in the first Western reversal of the kind.

Robert Fico told MPs that the country would “no longer supply weapons to Ukraine”, repeating promises made during his election campaign, but would still supply humanitarian aid to its war-torn neighbour.

“I will support zero military aid to Ukraine… An immediate halt to military operations is the best solution we have for Ukraine. The EU should change from an arms supplier to a peacemaker,” he added.

Russia immediately dismissed the impact Slovakia’s decision to halt military aid to Ukraine would have on the 20-month-old conflict.

“Slovakia did not have such a big share in the supply of weapons, so it will hardly affect the entire process,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, when asked about Bratislava’s decision.

Asked by AFP for a reaction on the decision, the foreign ministry of Ukraine declined to comment.

Bratislava’s previous pro-Western government had shown strong support for Ukraine.

The Central European country of 5.4 million people was notably the first NATO nation to deliver fighter jets to its war-torn neighbour.

According to the German-based Kiel Institute, Slovakia had pledged 680 million euros in total government support to Ukraine through July 2023.

That puts Slovakia among the countries with the largest government support to Ukraine by GDP (0.65 percent), behind Norway, the Baltic states, Denmark and Poland.

Symbolic value 

However, Robert Fico’s party won last month’s general vote on pledges to end military help for Ukraine, raising concerns about cracks in Western support for Kyiv.

Slovak political scientist Branislav Kovacik told AFP that Ukraine “will not miss the volume (of aid) provided by Slovakia” but added that “any loss in unity and support has symbolic meaning”.

Ukraine’s once close ties with fellow neighbour Poland have also recently plunged.

Following his party’s victory, Robert Fico said, “the people in Slovakia have bigger problems than (dealing with) Ukraine” and called for peace talks as “further killing will not help anyone”.

In the run-up to last month’s Polish general election, Warsaw said it would restrict arms deliveries to Kyiv as it needed to build up its own army.

A very public diplomatic row ensued, with Polish President Andrzej Duda comparing Ukraine to a “drowning man” who risked dragging his rescuers into the water.

Speaking at the UN at the time, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke of some EU countries “feigning solidarity” and thereby “indirectly supporting Russia”.

Robert Fico — who will attend the EU summit in Brussels Thursday — also expressed opposition to sanctions against Russia.

“I will not vote for any sanctions against Russia unless we see analyses of their impact on Slovakia,” he said.

“If there are to be such sanctions that will harm us, like most sanctions have, I can see no reason to support them.”

Shaking hands with Putin 

Robert Fico spoke a day after his three-party coalition government was appointed.

It includes Robert Fico’s left-wing Smer-SD, the far-right and pro-Russia SNS, and Hlas-SD, a breakaway party from Smer.

SNS shares Robert Fico’s staunch anti-refugee stance and populist leanings.

Its pro-Russian chairman and former parliamentary speaker Andrej Danko said in July that Russian-occupied territories were not “historically Ukrainian”.

He is infamous for shaking hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin, taking a selfie with Russian State Duma Chair Vyacheslav Volodin, and addressing Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as “my dear friend”.

Slovakia is one of the most pro-Russian countries in the European Union, according to the Bratislava-based Globsec think tank.

“Respondents’ belief that Russia was responsible for the war in Ukraine stood at only 40 percent, with most falling prey to disinformation narratives, blaming Ukraine or the West,” it said in a 2023 report.

Compare that to the neighbouring Czech Republic, with 71 percent.

Israel’s United Nations envoy showed the 193-member General Assembly a brief video on Thursday that he said showed a Hamas fighter trying to decapitate a man with a garden tool during the Palestinian militants’ October 7 attack on Israel.

Ambassador Gilad Erdan told diplomats the victim seen in the few seconds of footage he played for them on a tablet was not Israeli or Jewish, but an agricultural worker from Thailand.

“One can see a terribly injured civilian – bloodied, yet alive – laying on the ground as a Hamas savage screaming Allahu Akbar repeatedly pummels the man’s neck with a garden hoe in order to decapitate him,” Erdan told the assembly.

Erdan’s comments were delivered as the assembly began a two-day meeting on the Middle East on Thursday.

It is due to vote on Friday on a resolution drafted by Arab states that calls for a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

At each seat in the hall at United Nations headquarters, Israeli diplomats placed a print out of a QR code with the title “Free Gaza from Hamas, scan to see Hamas’ atrocities”. It linked to photos and videos from the October 7 attack.

Israel has vowed to wipe out Hamas, which rules Gaza, in retaliation for the attack that killed 1,400 people. Israel has struck Gaza from the air, imposed a siege on the enclave of 2.3 million people and is preparing a ground invasion. Palestinian authorities say more than 7,000 have been killed.

Speaking on behalf of Arab states, Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi accused Israel of “making Gaza a perpetual hell on earth – the trauma will haunt generations to come.” He said the impact on Palestinian civilians was immense.

“I don’t have videos to show you, we respect the dead too much,” Safadi said.

Arguing for a ceasefire, Palestinian UN envoy Riyad Mansour said certain nations, which he did not name, were applying a clear double standard.

“How can representatives of states explain how horrible it is that 1,000 Israelis were killed, and not feel the same outrage when 1,000 Palestinians are now killed every single day?” Mansour asked the assembly. “Why not feel a sense of urgency to end their killing?”