Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Tuesday, January 26 accused the UN chief of "encouraging terror" after Ban Ki-moon spoke of Palestinian frustration at Israel's occupation and said it was natural to resist, AFP reports.
"The comments of the UN Secretary General encourage terror," Netanyahu said in a statement. "There is no justification for terror."
Earlier, Ban told the UN Security Council of the "profound sense of alienation and despair driving some Palestinians -– especially young people" in the upsurge of attacks on Israelis since the start of October.
"Palestinian frustration is growing under the weight of a half century of occupation and the paralysis of the peace process," he said, according to AFP.
Violence since October 1 has killed 159 Palestinians and 25 Israelis, as well as an American and an Eritrean, according to an AFP count.
"They rightly raise fundamental questions about Israel's commitment to a two-state solution," Ban said.
Netanyahu responded that the Palestinians themselves were not working for two states.
"The Palestinian murderers do not want to build a state, they want to destroy a state and they say it out loud," he said.
"They want to murder Jews wherever they are and they say so out loud. They do not murder for peace and they do not murder for human rights."
