Israel refuses to grant visas to UN officials after Secretary General Antonio Guterres sparks outrage with claims the Hamas attacks ‘didn’t happen in a vacuum’

Israel is refusing to grant visas to United Nations representatives after the organisation’s chief claimed the Hamas attacks ‘didn’t happen in a vacuum’.

As pressure builds on Secretary General Antonio Guterres over his comments at yesterday’s security council, Israel’s envoy to the UN said it was ‘time to teach them a lesson’.

Mr Guterres sparked a furious backlash after he said the Hamas atrocities on October 7 cannot justify the ‘collective punishment of the Palestinian people’.

At a high-level meeting of the 15-member Security Council in New York, Mr Guterres claimed the 1,400 murders did not happen ‘in a vacuum’.

During a press conference today, Mr Guterres said that he is ‘shocked’ by the ‘misrepresentations’ of his remarks.

He said: ‘I am shocked by misrepresentations by some of my statement yesterday in the Security Council – as if I was justifying acts of terror by Hamas.’

But Israel’s UN ambassador, Gilad Erdan, said Mr Guterres’ council address meant he was ‘not fit’ to lead the body.

Mr Guterres sparked a furious backlash after he said the Hamas atrocities on October 7 cannot justify the ‘collective punishment of the Palestinian people’

But Israel’s UN ambassador, Gilad Erdan, said Mr Guterres’ council address meant he was ‘not fit’ to lead the body

In response, he said Israel will ‘refuse to grant visas to UN representatives’.

Mr Erdan told Israel’s Army Radio station: ‘We have already refused to give one to Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths. It’s time to teach them a lesson.’

Israeli airstrikes have destroyed large swathes of the Gaza Strip, leaving at least 6,500 Palestinians killed, including over 2,700 children, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.

Mr Guterres had earlier tried to walk back the comments, tweeting: ‘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.’

Today Downing Street made clear Rishi Sunak also did not agree with Mr Guterres’s language.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: ‘Obviously we don’t agree with that characterisation put forward.

‘We are clear that there is and can be no justification for Hamas’s barbaric terrorist attack which was driven by hatred and ideology.’

The spokesman said that the UN ‘as a body will continue to play an important role… and that is supported by the UK Government’.

Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick, a close ally of Mr Sunak, suggested Mr Guterres should ‘retract’ the remarks.

He told ITV’s Good Morning Britain programme that the comments were ‘wrong’ and that he should ‘retract’ them if he was ‘implying there is any justification for’ the killing of 1,400 Israelis, most of them civilians, by Hamas fighters on October 7.

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