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Israel to block visas for UN officials
The row comes after Antonio Guterres said the Hamas attack did not happen “in a vacuum”
Israel has announced it will refuse visa applications from UN officials in retaliation for comments made by the organization’s secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, who said this week that the attack launched by Hamas on October 7 did not occur “in a vacuum.”
“Due to [Guterres’] remarks we will refuse to issue visas to UN representatives,” Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, told Army Radio on Wednesday. “We have already refused a visa for undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs Martin Griffiths. The time has come to teach them a lesson.”
The Israeli diplomat claimed on X (formerly Twitter) that Guterres had “expressed a justification for terrorism and murder.”
Erdan’s comments come amid fallout from Guterres’ speech to the 15-member Security Council on Tuesday, during which he appeared to express criticism of Israel for ordering the evacuation of civilians from northern Gaza to the south of the enclave.
The UN chief said that the Hamas attack earlier this month, during which around 1,400 people – mostly civilians – were killed, did not happen “in a vacuum” and that the Palestinian people have been “subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.”
https://www.rt.com/news/585784-israel-united-nations-visa-hamas/