Israel vows to 'teach UN a lesson’ after Guterres’ comments on Gaza conflict

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ speech during a high-level session with the Security Council, where he criticised Israel’s violations of international law in Gaza, has further escalated tensions between Israel and the United Nations.

Israel announced on Wednesday that it would be denying visas to UN officials. 

Gilad Erdan, Israel's ambassador to the UN, told the Israeli military's Army Radio that Israel "will refuse to issue visas to UN representatives."

"We have already refused a visa for Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths," Erdan said. 

 "The time has come to teach them a lesson."

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.

— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) October 25, 2023

On Tuesday, Guterres addressed the UN to emphasise both the "appalling violence" of Hamas’s surprise attacks on 7 October and the "collective punishment" of the Palestinian population in Israel's airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, which have so far killed over 6,500 people. 

The UN chief argued that the attack did not occur "in a vacuum" and said it followed "56 years of suffocating occupation" for the Palestinian people by Israel. 

"They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced and their homes demolished. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing," he said. 

The secretary-general's comments have been met with fury by several Israeli politicians, who have called for his resignation. 

Israeli foreign minister Eli Cohen cancelled a meeting with Guterres and former Israeli Minister of Defence Benny Gantz called the UN chief a "terror apologist." 

Hamas carried out a surprise air, ground and sea attack in southern Israel on 7 October that killed at least 1,400 people, with more than 220 hostages being taken, according to Israeli officials. 

Over 6,500 Palestinians have been killed - 700 of them in 24 hours between Tuesday and Wednesday - and nearly 18,000 have been wounded across the Gaza Strip in Israel's indiscriminate bombardment of the Palestinian enclave.

Israel has also imposed a total siege of the Gaza Strip, putting thousands of patients at risk of death as hospitals run out of fuel.