Israel has declared United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres “persona non grata” and barred him from entering the country.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz announced the decision on social media, accusing Guterres of failing to adequately condemn the 7 October Hamas attacks and yesterday’s Iranian strikes on Israel.
“Today, I have declared UN secretary-general António Guterres persona non grata in Israel and banned him from entering the country,” Katz stated. “Anyone who cannot unequivocally condemn Iran’s heinous attack on Israel, as almost every country in the world has done, does not deserve to step foot on Israeli soil.”
The move comes amidst ongoing criticism from Israeli officials over Guterres’s stance on the Israel-Hamas conflict. In October 2023, said: “It is important to also recognise the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.”
Katz further accused the Secretary-General of giving “backing to terrorists, rapists, and murderers from Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and now Iran”, declaring that Guterres “will be remembered as a stain on the history of the UN”.
However, Guterres has previously condemned the 7 October attacks, stating last year: “I have condemned unequivocally the horrifying and unprecedented 7 October 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.”
This unprecedented move by Israel follows a recent non-binding UN motion, backed by an overwhelming majority of member states, calling for an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories in the West Bank.
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