UN chief Guterres says Israel's conduct of war in Gaza 'fundamentally wrong'

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated in an interview on Wednesday that there was something "fundamentally wrong" with how Israel conducted its military operation in the Gaza Strip and there are "strong reasons to believe" that war crimes have been committed.

"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 during the interview in New York.

"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 noted.

More than 70,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to Gaza's health authorities, during the two-year conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas. It was triggered by a Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 that killed about 1,200 people and saw 251 hostages taken.

(With input from Reuters)