Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz called on the U.N. Secretary General to declare Hamas a terrorist organization.
By JNS
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz sent a sharply worded letter to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday, charging him with a blatant disregard for the atrocities committed by Hamas against the Jewish people on Oct. 7.
“Your dismissal of the heinous acts as documented in the recent U.N. report—acts which are still being perpetrated—is not only inadequate but also offensive,” wrote Katz.
“The world has been waiting five months for your actions. The necessity to declare Hamas as a terrorist organization, and to impose severe sanctions similar to those placed on Al Qaeda and Daesh, is critical and
indisputable,” he added.
“Your reluctance to lead a decisive international stance against these atrocities, instead fixating on criticism on Israel—a nation in self-defense after a barbaric massacre—signals a distressing bias.
“If the victims would not have been of Jewish or Israeli descent, your office would have responded in a much [more]vigorous way,” the letter continues.
“Any moral leader” would have taken steps to immediately secure the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas, wrote Katz, noting that Guterres’ office had not even “ensured that U.N. sub-bodies provide necessary medical care to the hostages.”
What’s more, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the U.N. aid agency for Palestinian Arabs, was “implicated” in the massacre, Katz said, adding that UNRWA’s corruption has been long documented, but that Guterres had “neglected to take appropriate actions.”
Katz also called attention to the delay in addressing a report on Hamas’s barbarous acts, “barring one brief mention in a footnote—your call for a Security Council session under Article 99, which ironically included an attack on Israel’s response.”
“Your tenure at the U.N. is set to be remembered for diminishing the organization’s stature to an all-time low, allowing it to become an epicenter of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel incitement,” wrote Katz.
Israel Katz (l) alongside a father of one of the hostages held by Hamas at the U.N., March 11, 2024. Photo by Shlomi Amsalem/MFA.
The Foreign Minister sent the letter on the same day he addressed the U.N. Security Council in a special emergency discussion regarding a U.N. report on Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities.
“Close your eyes and imagine what you would feel if these were your children,” Katz told the Security Council.
Katz was accompanied by families of the hostages, Israel’s Ambassador to the U.N. Gilad Erdan, the Minister for Social Equality and the Advancement of the Status of Women May Golan and Brig-Gen. (res.) Gal Hirsch, Israel’s Coordinator for the Hostages and the Missing.