‘Israel has right to genocide’, Swedish PM’s horrible gaffe at event attended by Palestinian supporters. Watch

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson made a horrible gaffe when he said that Israel “has right to genocide” during a townhall event attended by many pro-Palestinian protesters.

During an event in Gothenburg on Wednesday (Nov 22), the PM presumably made the mistake in front of a huge crowd, before correcting himself by saying that Israel “has the right to self-defence”, invoking laughter from the protesters.

In the now viral video, Kristersson can be heard saying, “Sweden and the EU stand united, Israel has the right to genoci…self-defence!”

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Crowd heckles PM

Soon, someone from the boisterous crowd shouted back at the prime minister saying, “Do they have the right to genocide now? Does Israel have the right to genocide? We heard it", as the Swedish leader was seen taking a long pause after his slip-up.

As the event progressed, the protesters constantly jeered and booed the centre-right politician, chanting "Shame on you," over his strong pro-Israel stance, prompting the police to remove some of them from the venue.

Kristersson later slammed the protestors on Facebook, calling them disrespectful.

Swedish leader slams protesters

“When we met tonight with a few hundred Gothenburgers, the meeting was disrupted by a screaming and shouting group of people who refused to respect everyone else who had come to ask questions,” he wrote.

“These political saboteurs appeared to have come to our question-and-answer session only to shout out their anger over Sweden and the EU’s political position about the conflict in the Middle East – they were particularly disappointed over the condemnation of the terror organization Hamas.”

Israel launched its war in Gaza after militants from Hamas burst across the border fence, killing 1,200 people and seizing about 240 hostages on October 7.

Since then, more than 14,000 Gazans have been killed by Israeli bombardment, around 40 per cent of them children, according to health authorities in the Hamas-ruled territory.

Meanwhile, Israel and Hamas will start a four-day truce on Friday morning with the first batch of Israeli hostages released later that day.

The agreement —the first in a brutal, near two-month war —would begin at 7 a.m. local time (0500 GMT) and involve a comprehensive ceasefire in north and south Gaza, a spokesperson for Qatar's foreign ministry said.

(With inputs from agencies)