Philippine Ambassador to the United Kingdom Teodoro Locsin Jr. on Sunday, Oct. 22, apologized for his now-deleted “sarcasting response” stating that Palestinian children “should be killed”

“I immediately deleted my sarcastic response to a tweet as I realized it could be misconstrued and retweeted to incite. My apologies to those who did misconstrue my sentiments and did in fact get triggered,” he said.

Locsin also claimed that he did not call for the “literal death” of anyone but simply to halt ideologies that would accept terrorism.

“I obviously was not advocating for the literal death of anyone, but rather simply for the end of any ideology that condones terrorism in any way, shape or form,” he added.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) earlier stated that it disassociated itself from the former foreign secretary over the latter’s post.