The Representative of Israel to the UN, Gilad Erdan, has announced that his government will no longer issue visas to the United Nations organization representatives as a counteraction measure of the UN chief’s speech that condemns the war in Gaza.
According to Al-Jazeera, Erdan made the statement earlier today, which follows the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s speech condemning Israel for ordering the evacuation of civilians from the north to the south of the Gaza strip, VisaGuide.World reports.
Guterres noted that the Hamas’s attack on Israel has happened after years of Palestinians being oppressed by Israelis.
Although the UN Secretary General’s speech was welcomed by many countries, Israel called on the UN chief to resign. Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, who was supposed to meet up with Guterres on Tuesday afternoon, cancelled this meeting, while Al Jazeera’s reporter, Gabriel Elizondo, said that “it is really unusual to see this sort of reaction against the secretary-general”.
“Due to his [Guterres’s] remarks, we will refuse to issue visas to UN representatives. We have already refused a visa for Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths. The time has come to teach them a lesson,” the Representative of Israel to the UN, Gilad Erdan, said.
The same noted that with his speech, the UN chief had expressed an understanding of terrorism and murder.
Despite the measures and the reaction Guterres received from Israeli representatives, he is not budging on his position, as he later posted an exact part from his speech.
“The grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the horrific attacks by Hamas. Those horrendous attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people,” UN Secretary-General, Guterres said on his speech.
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has condemned Israel’s call for the UN secretary-general to resign, saying that it was an “unprovoked attack”.
The Gaza war began on October 7, after Hamas fighters stormed into Israel and attacked people, including families and a music festival, which took the number of victims to 1,400 and more than 220 people were taken hostage, as the Israeli officials said.
On the other hand, around 5,800 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed across Gaza, in a counteract of Israel, as Gaza’s Health Ministry said.
Hamas organization previously stated that the incursion was in retaliation for the storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the growing violence of Israelis against Palestinians.
Earlier, United Nations agencies called for emergency aid to be allowed to be distributed into Gaza, saying more than 20 times current deliveries were needed.