UNITED NATIONS, October 24. /TASS/. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he unequivocally condemns the October 7 attacks on Israel by militants from the radical Palestinian group Hamas, but said they did not happen "in a vacuum."

"I have condemned unequivocally the horrifying and unprecedented October 7 acts of terror by Hamas in Israel. Nothing can justify the deliberate killing, injuring and kidnapping of civilians - or the launching of rockets against civilian targets," he said at UN Security Council debate dedicated to the situation in the Middle East. "It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation."

"But the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas. And those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people. Even war has rules," the secretary general said.

He expressed condolences over the killing in the bombardment of Gaza of at least 35 people working for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.

The situation in the Middle East sharply escalated following an incursion of Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip into Israel on October 7. Hamas regards the attack as a response to Israeli actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Jerusalem's Temple Mount. Israel has declared a complete siege of the Gaza Strip and has started delivering strikes on that area and parts of Lebanon and Syria. Clashes are also taking place in the West Bank.