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Israel Bans UN Chief Guterres From Entering Country Over Response to Iran Attack, Hamas Massacre
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres speaks to members of the Security Council during a meeting to address the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question, at UN headquarters in New York City, New York, US, April 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz announced on Wednesday that United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres is “persona non grata in Israel” and banned from entering the Jewish state because of his failure to unequivocally condemn Iran by name for launching a barrage of ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday.
“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 in a post on X/Twitter where he announced the move to bar Guterres.
Katz also lambasted the UN chief for his response to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.
“This is a Secretary-General who has yet to denounce the massacre and sexual atrocities committed by Hamas murderers on October 7, nor has he led any efforts to declare them a terrorist organization,” Katz added. “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. Israel will continue to defend its citizens and uphold its national dignity, with or without António Guterres.”
Iran, the chief international sponsor of Hamas, launched 181 ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday, forcing all of Israel’s population of 10 million people to hide in bomb shelters. The state of Israel said only one person was killed in the missile attack — Sameh Asli, 37, a Palestinian from Jabalia in the Gaza Strip. He was killed by missile shrapnel in the West Bank village of Nu’eima, near Jericho, during the attack.
Guterres took to X/Twitter on Tuesday to comment on Iran’s ballistic missile attack against Israel, but he failed to name Israel or Iran in his remarks.
“I condemn the broadening of the Middle East conflict with escalation after escalation. This must stop. We absolutely need a ceasefire,” Guterres wrote in his post, which has been viewed by 9.5 million people.
French-Jewish philosopher and writer Bernard-Henri Lévy tweeted in response: “No, @antonioguterres. What should be condemned is not ‘escalation’ but ‘#Iran.’ By failing to say that, the #UN (and you) prove, once again, to be blind, deaf, useless, shameful and devoid of any moral sense. #Israel has to win.”
Arsen Ostrovsky, a human rights lawyer and CEO of The International Legal Forum, commented on Guterres’ post saying, “You pathetic, disgusting coward. You could not even mention Israel. You are beyond redemption.”
Others accused the UN chief of “always being on the side of the terrorists” and “covering up for the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an internationally designated terrorist organization] in Iran, which you conveniently are unable to even mention.”
“There will be a ceasefire when the [Iranian] regime is where it belongs — in the dustbin of history, and the Middle East is free,” another X user told Guterres.
A post on X by UN Secretary-General António Guterres. Photo: Screenshot
Guterres has been condemned by Israeli officials in the past and even faced pressure to resign after he seemed to blame Israel for the Oct. 7 massacre, during which Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists murdered 1,200 people and took over 250 hostages back to the Gaza Strip during their rampage across southern Israel. There are still 101 hostages being held in Gaza by Hamas.
Israeli officials have often accused the UN of having a bias against the Jewish state, and Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon recently called on the international body to apply more sanctions against Iran until its “capacity to support terror is completely diminished.”
The UN General Assembly passed with an overwhelming majority last month a non-binding Palestinian resolution demanding that Israel end its “occupation” of the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and East Jerusalem within 12 months.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
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