António Guterres failure in Gaza: A crisis of bias and hesitation
The war in Gaza has once again laid bare the limits of global diplomacy.
Each day brings images of bombed-out buildings, desperate families searching for safety and voices drowned by the roar of rockets and tanks.
At the centre of the world’s supposed moral compass, the United Nations should stand tall, firm, fair and fearless in its pursuit of peace.
Yet, the response from Secretary-General António Guterres has been timid at best, and biased at worst.
His latest call for an immediate ceasefire, delivered from Tokyo, may sound humane, but it rings hollow when weighed against the pattern of hesitation, partiality and ineffectiveness that have defined his leadership on the Israeli-Hamas conflict.
It is not that Guterres has been silent. He has spoken often, condemned loudly and urged restraint from both sides.
But words matter less when they are poorly timed, one-sided or stripped of the urgency that true leadership demands.
His demand for the “unconditional release of hostages” held by Hamas, while necessary, came too late.
And his criticism of Israel’s military response, though not without justification, is consistently louder and sharper than his pressure on Hamas to end its violent provocations.
The balance is off, and so is the credibility of the UN.
Problem with Timing
In diplomacy, timing is everything. A leader’s words must not only be principled but also timely, shaping events before they spiral out of control.
Guterres has failed this test repeatedly.
His Tokyo remarks came after Israel had already mobilised tens of thousands of reservists and announced its intention to seize Gaza City.
At that stage, his call for a ceasefire was a little more than wishful thinking, a symbolic plea drowned by the sound of advancing tanks.
The humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza did not start with Israel’s declaration of intent. It began the moment Hamas launched its latest round of rocket attacks, targeting civilians and taking hostages in a brazen violation of international law.
That was the moment the Secretary-General should have stepped forward, not merely to condemn, but to marshal international pressure against Hamas to release hostages and halt indiscriminate violence.
Instead, the world witnessed hesitation, carefully worded statements, and an approach that seemed more concerned with not offending one side than with saving lives.
By the time Guterres sharpened his tone, events had overtaken diplomacy.
Thousands were already dead, hostages remained in captivity, and the humanitarian corridors that might have saved lives were choked by mistrust and escalating violence.
A Pattern of Bias
Critics of the UN have long argued that it tilts against Israel, and Guterres has done little to dispel this impression.
His condemnation of Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank may be justified under international law, but the timing and tone often suggest a fixation.
While he has rightly called settlements an obstacle to peace, he has not consistently matched this with equal, forceful denunciations of Hamas’s charter, which still calls for the destruction of Israel or of its practice of embedding military assets in civilian neighbourhoods.
This imbalance fosters the perception of bias.
For every sharp rebuke of Israel, there should be an equally strong insistence that Hamas abandon terrorism, disarm and accept the legitimacy of Israel’s existence. Instead, Guterres’s words often read like a ledger, where Israel’s misdeeds are highlighted in bold while Hamas’s atrocities are footnoted.
The demand for the unconditional release of hostages is a case in point. Guterres is correct to insist on this. But why was that demand not front and centre from the very start of the crisis? Why was the outrage not louder, more sustained and more urgent? When civilians are kidnapped and used as bargaining chips, hesitation is complicity.
The United Nations
It would be unfair to place the burden entirely on Guterres.
The UN itself is crippled by structural weaknesses that make decisive action nearly impossible.
The Security Council, paralysed by vetoes and great-power rivalries, has become a graveyard of resolutions.
In the case of Gaza, this paralysis has left the Secretary-General as one of the few voices capable of cutting through the noise.
Yet, instead of rising above the dysfunction, Guterres has too often been swallowed by it.
The UN’s humanitarian arms do critical work in Gaza; delivering aid, building schools and treating the wounded. But these efforts are undercut by the organisation’s inability to hold Hamas accountable.
The UN has never mounted the kind of sustained diplomatic pressure that could force Hamas to change course.
There has been no concerted campaign to demand that Hamas stop using civilians as shields to end its rocket attacks or to release hostages without precondition.
Instead, the organisation has been content with issuing statements, convening meetings and watching from the sidelines as blood pools on the streets.
The failure is not just one of diplomacy, but of moral clarity.
When an armed group commits war crimes, the world body should say so unequivocally.
When hostages are taken, their release should not be a late addition to the script, but the opening line.
Cost of Hesitation
Every day of hesitation has a human cost. Families in Israel live with the agony of not knowing whether their loved ones held in Gaza are alive or dead.
In Gaza, civilians, many of them children, are caught between Hamas’s rockets and Israel’s bombs.
The absence of strong, decisive leadership from the UN has allowed both sides to push the conflict deeper into tragedy.
Had Guterres acted earlier and more forcefully, perhaps international pressure could have pried open space for negotiation, humanitarian corridors or even a temporary halt in hostilities.
Instead, his words have too often come after the fact, serving more as a record of despair than a catalyst for change.
Leadership
True leadership in this conflict requires three things: balance, urgency and courage. Balance means recognising that both Israel and Hamas bear responsibility for the suffering and holding them equally accountable.
Urgency means speaking when it matters most, not when events have already spiralled beyond control. And courage means facing critics on all sides to defend the principles of international law and human dignity without fear or favour.
Guterres has at times embodied these qualities, but rarely all at once.
Too often, he has leaned toward balance at the expense of urgency or towards urgency without the courage to confront Hamas directly.
The result is a record of statements that sound principled but achieve little.
Conclusion
The Gaza conflict is not just a test for Israel, Hamas or the broader Middle East; it is a test for the international system itself.
If the UN cannot act decisively in the face of such blatant violations of international law, then what is its purpose?
If its Secretary-General cannot speak with clarity and conviction at the right moments, then who will?
António Guterres may see himself as a neutral broker, but neutrality is not the same as fairness.
By acting too little, too late and by failing to pressure Hamas with the same force he applies to Israel, he has diminished both his office and the credibility of the United Nations.
History will not judge him kindly if this pattern continues.
The world does not need more delayed pleas from distant podiums.
It needs leadership; real, balanced and fearless.
Until the UN and its Secretary-General find the courage to confront Hamas with the same vigour as they confront Israel, they will remain part of the problem, not the solution.
