Israel bans UN chief Guterres over Iran airstrike remarks
Israel's Foreign Minister Israel Katz announced that he has declared UN Secretary-General António Guterres persona non grata and banned him from entering the country for failing to "unequivocally condemn" Iran for Tuesday's airstrike on Israel. "He will be remembered as a stain on the honour of the UN," Katz asserted.
"Anyone who cannot unequivocally condemn Iran's cruel attack on Israel, as almost every country in the world has done, does not deserve to set foot on Israeli soil," Katz wrote on social media.
He added that Guterres has so far "failed to condemn the massacres and sexual atrocities committed by Hamas murderers on 7 October or make any efforts to recognise it as a terrorist organisation."
"A Secretary-General who supports terrorists, rapists, and murderers from Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, and now Iran (...) will be remembered as a stain on the honour of the UN," Katz concluded.
Iran's retaliation
Iran launched more than 200 ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday, most of which were shot down by air defences. Tehran stated that the airstrike was in revenge for Israel’s killing of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders and announced further attacks in case of an armed response from Israel, which has already announced it will respond to Tuesday's strike.
Guterres wrote on Tuesday on X that he "condemns the Middle East conflict, which is expanding with further escalations."
The UN Secretary-General had already been criticised by Israeli diplomacy earlier, for example, for his appearance before the UN Security Council on 24 October 2023. Guterres then said that he "unequivocally condemned the horrific and unprecedented acts of terror committed by Hamas on 7 October; nothing justifies the deliberate killing, injuring, and kidnapping of civilians." He then added that "Hamas’s attack did not happen in a vacuum" and that it must be remembered that Palestinians have been subjected to "suffocating occupation" for 56 years, and "horrifying attacks cannot justify collective punishment of Palestinians.”
The war in the Gaza Strip erupted after Hamas’s attack on southern Israel, in which nearly 1,200 people were killed, and 251 were kidnapped. In response, Israel started a war against this ruling Gaza terrorist organisation. According to local medical authorities, more than 46,000 Palestinians have been killed in it so far. The Gaza Strip is devastated, there is a humanitarian crisis, and most of the residents have become internally displaced.
