The United Nations has “added Israel to the blacklist of sexual violence in conflict zones”, prompting Israel to cut ties with UN chief Antonio Guterres, the country’s ambassador to the UN says.
“We are done with this secretary-general,” Israeli ambassador Danny Danon added in a video posted on X on Thursday, denouncing the upcoming report from Guterres’s office.
The UN secretary-general’s annual report on conflict-related sexual violence is customarily presented to relevant states before publication. Last August, the report warned that Israel could be added to the list of parties suspected of, or responsible for, sexual violence in situations of armed conflict.
“The decision to blacklist Israel and accuse us of using sexual violence as a weapon of war is an outrageous decision,” Danon said.
“The secretary-general and his team continue to spread lies against Israel. To put us and Hamas terrorists on the same list, that’s unacceptable.”
The Israeli mission to the UN said in a statement that it will have no contact with the secretary-general’s office as long as Guterres serves as head of the organisation.
The country’s foreign ministry also expressed anger over the upcoming report.
“The shameful and absurd UN decision to include Israeli entities in the annex to the CRSV (conflict-related sexual violence) report is further proof of the UN’s true nature: a politicised and corrupt organisation that has abandoned its founding principles and systematically targets Israel as its primary mission,” Oren Marmorstein, a spokesperson for the Israeli foreign ministry, said on X.
Guterres’s spokesperson said they were aware of Danon’s remarks.
“For our part, the secretary-general’s door remains open,” Stephane Dujarric said.
Reem Alsalem, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, said adding Israel to the blacklist for sexual violence is “long overdue”.
“This listing could not have come soon enough,” Alsalem wrote on X.
“I had in the past expressed my disappointment that Israel was not listed already, given the systematic, large-scale and horrific sexual violence perpetrated by Israel against Palestinian women, men and children that have been independently documented and verified,” she added.
Systematic pattern of abuse
Last August, the UN cited “credible information” regarding sexual violence committed by Israeli security forces against Palestinian detainees in prisons and other detention centres, and said UN inspectors had been denied access to the facilities.
“We invited the representative of the UN to come to Israel to check those ridiculous allegations. They chose not to come,” Danon said.
Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons, especially those taken from Gaza during Israel’s brutal war since 2023, have long revealed how they suffer dehumanising treatment by guards and soldiers, including torture and sexual violence. According to international human rights organisations, these testimonies are part of a broader and systematic pattern.
Furthermore, a report from the West Bank Protection Consortium last month found that sexual violence and other forms of gender-based abuse committed by Israeli settlers and soldiers are spurring Palestinians to leave the occupied West Bank.
Even foreigners, namely those on board a recent Gaza-bound aid flotilla, say that freed activists who were abducted from international waters faced abuse while in Israeli detention, including at least 15 separate cases of sexual assault or rape.
Earlier this month, Israel also rejected accusations of rape by its forces, which were detailed in a column by longtime New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof. The Israeli government had responded to the report by stating that it would take the extraordinary step of suing the paper. Kristof’s reporting was based on the accounts of 14 male and female Palestinian victims.
Relations between the UN and Israel are fraught and have reached an all-time low since October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched an attack that preceded Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, which has killed more than 72,000 Palestinians.
Israeli authorities have criticised Guterres and other UN officials for their condemnation of its brutal conduct in Gaza. The UN chief was declared “persona non grata” in Israel in 2024.–Al Jazeera
