Tensions over Gaza war
Israel recalls its UN ambassador
March 4, 2024, 9:50 p.m
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UN Secretary General Guterres faces criticism from Israel for his statement that the Hamas attack on October 7th “did not occur in a vacuum.” The fronts between the United Nations and the Israeli government are becoming so hardened that Israel is calling off its UN chief diplomat.
Israel recalls its ambassador to the UN for consultations. He had instructed Ambassador Gilad Erdan to return to Israel “for immediate consultations,” Foreign Minister Israel Katz explained in the evening on the online service .
Relations between Israel and the UN deteriorated after the start of the Gaza war. At the end of October, Ambassador Erdan called on UN Secretary General António Guterres to resign. The trigger was a speech by Guterres in which he strongly condemned the Hamas attack on Israel, but at the same time said that the attacks by the radical Islamic Palestinian organization “did not occur in a vacuum.” In this context, Guterres spoke of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.
Israel also backed up its terror allegations against the UN relief agency for Palestine refugees UNRWA before the United Nations General Assembly. Israel’s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan showed a video during his speech in New York that purported to show a UNRWA employee in Israel on October 7th. In the clipping Erdan held up on a tablet, two people could be seen lifting a seemingly lifeless body into a vehicle. The diplomat said one of the men was a person who worked as a social worker for the UN agency. “UN employees are kidnapping Israeli children!” Erdan exclaimed.
Guterres’ statements about the Hamas attack in the fall had already provoked strong reactions from Israel. Israeli UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan announced that he would no longer give visas to United Nations representatives. Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen canceled a planned meeting with Guterres. Edan said at the time that Guterres’ statement to the UN Security Council that the terrorist act by the Islamist Hamas should be seen in the context of the decades-long oppression of the Palestinians by the Israelis was a “pure blood libel.” The UN chief did not care about the suffering of the Israeli civilian population.