The Israeli Foreign Minister banned the UN Secretary-General from entering Israel stressing that he “does not deserve to step foot on Israeli soil”.
Israel officially declared on Wednesday the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres as ‘persona non grata’, banning him from entering Israel, Israeli media reported.
The announcement came with a post on X by Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz. Katz said the ban is due to Guterres’s failure to “unequivocally condemn” Iran’s missile attack on Israel.
Today, I have declared UN Secretary-General @antonioguterres persona non grata in Israel and banned him from entering the country.
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…
— ישראל כ”ץ Israel Katz (@Israel_katz) October 2, 2024
“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,” Katz wrote.
“This is a Secretary-General who has yet to denounce the massacre” of October 7, Katz also said.
“A Secretary-General who gives backing to terrorists, rapists, and murderers from Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and now Iran—the mothership of global terror—will be remembered as a stain on the history of the UN,” the minister concluded.
‘Antisemitic Swamp’
This was not the first time an Israeli official has attacked the UN and its agencies, nor is Katz the only one to do so, since a number of Israeli officials have accused the organization of being biased against Israel.
In his address to the UN General Assembly on September 27, for example, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu labeled the world organization as an “antisemitic swamp” and “anti-Israel flat earth society”.
Israeli officials have repeatedly demanded that Guterres resign, especially after the UN Secretary-Genearl declared that the Al-Aqsa Flood operation “did not happen in a vacuum” and that “the Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.”
Outgoing Israeli ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, has also harshly criticized the UN, stating that its headquarters in New York should be “wiped off the face of the earth” Israeli media reported.
The Israeli Foreign Minister Katz declared the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres persona non grata and decided to ban him from entering Israel. There is no limit to the arrogance and reckless behavior of the Israeli government. pic.twitter.com/pwsOdkrWqM
— Mustafa Barghouti @Mustafa_Barghouti (@MustafaBarghou1) October 2, 2024
“The UN building should be closed and wiped off from the face of the earth,” Erdan told Israeli daily Maariv in an interview published on August 20, according to the Anadolu news agency.
“This building, which may look nice from the outside, is actually twisted and distorted,” said Erdan.
The Times of Israel also reported that in an upcoming interview with i24News, Erdan said: “I’m coming out with a feeling of satisfaction on one hand, of my battle and work here, but on the other hand with great distress and frustration with the fact that this building, which may look nice from the outside, is actually twisted and distorted.”
Ongoing Genocide
Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza.
Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 41,689 Palestinians have been killed, and 96,625 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7, 2023.
Moreover, at least 11,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Later in the war, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians began moving from the south to central Gaza in a constant search for safety.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
Be the first to comment