Israel will no longer grant automatic visas to United Nations staff in retaliation for the way its Secretary-General António Guterres and some of the organization’s organizations responded to the Hamas attack on Israeli territory on October 7, a spokesman told Efe . of the Chancellery.
“We will not issue visas automatically because the United Nations, led by the Secretary-General and some other organizations, responded to the October 7 massacre by legitimizing terrorism and remaining silent in the face of the suffering of Israeli citizens,” said the spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The official stated that the visas will be granted after an examination – or not “on a case by case basis”.
The Islamist group Hamas carried out a massive attack against Israel on October 7, sparking the war. Rockets were fired and at the same time around 3,000 militiamen were infiltrated, massacring around 1,200 people and kidnapping another 250 in the towns near Gaza.
On October 24, Guterres announced this to the UN Security Council “Hamas attacks did not take place in a vacuum”.
“The Palestinian people have been subjected to oppressive occupation for 56 years,” he said, referring to the Israeli occupation and colonization of the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since 1967, which violates international law and, according to human rights groups, a reality of apartheid.
Palestinians “have seen their land continually consumed by settlements and violence, their economy stifled, their people displaced and their homes destroyed. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have faded,” he added.
However, Guterres emphasized this “The grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify Hamas’s heinous attacks.”. And these cruel attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people,” referring to Israel’s relentless air, land and sea offensive against the Gaza Strip, which has left nearly 21,000 dead, 55,000 injured and 1.9 million displaced.
On December 2, Israel called for the resignation of the director of UN Women, Jordanian Sami Bahous, believing she had taken a “shameful” position on the Hamas attack by failing to properly denounce the gender crimes committed by the militants.
This came a day after the agency “unequivocally rejected Hamas’s brutal attacks on Israel” and expressed the need to investigate “the numerous reports of gender-based atrocities and sexual violence during these attacks.”
On November 22, Israel accused the UN Security Council, UNICEF and UN Women of systematically siding with Hamas and ignoring suffering or victim data provided to them by the Israeli government.