Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, on Tuesday issued a forceful dismissal of U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres’s warning on Monday regarding Israel’s potential inclusion in the organization’s sexual violence documentation.
Danon characterized the threat, conveyed in a letter to him from Guterres, as another manifestation of what he said was systematic bias that elevates unverified accusations above documented Hamas atrocities.
In his letter, Guterres’s warned that Israel was in a cautionary category ahead of possible inclusion in next year’s Conflict-Related Sexual Violence (CRSV) report.
Danon’s response emphasized Israel’s commitment to lawful conduct, while condemning what he described as prejudicial treatment.
“The secretary-general repeatedly chooses to embrace baseless accusations word-for-word, founded on partisan publications. The U.N. must concentrate on Hamas’ devastating war crimes and securing complete hostage release. Israel remains undeterred in protecting its citizens while maintaining adherence to international legal standards,” Danon stated.
Guterres said that Israel’s denial of inspector access hampers the organization’s ability to establish definitive behavioral patterns, and simultaneously expressed “substantial concern” about documented violence indicators.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar last week confronted Guterres during Israel’s Security Council presentation on the conditions of the hostages being held by terrorist groups in Gaza. “Are you aware of Secretary-General Guterres’s social media response following the horrific images of [hostages] Evyatar [David] and Rom Braslavski? Complete silence. Thunderous quiet. Yet everyone witnesses his relentless and compulsive anti-Israel posting,” said Sa’ar.
Meanwhile, Israel’s Channel 12 News reported on Thursday that the United Nations is expected to blacklist Hamas in the 2025 CRSV report, for the first time.
Guterres reportedly objected to its inclusion the previous year, despite findings on the matter published by U.N. Special Representative Pramila Patten in March 2024 with regard to Hamas’s atrocities during its cross-border attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
Hamas’s inclusion in the official annex of the CRSV report, according to Israel’s Foreign Ministry, constitutes “an international seal of guilt for an especially grave offense in international law, on the same level as war crimes and crimes against humanity,” per Channel 12.
According to the ministry, Hamas terrorists carried out on Oct. 7, 2023, “some of the most horrific sexual crimes known to humanity: rape, gang rape, genital mutilation, and sexual abuse in captivity.”
The ministry added that it has information that Hamas continues to sexually abuse the hostages in Gaza.
In light of Guterres’s warning about the possibility that Israel may be blacklisted in the same report, the ministry stated that it was working to thwart what it said were false accusations being spread against Israel, branding them as “blood libels.”
The authors of the Dinah Project report, released last month in Jerusalem, found that sexual violence was “widespread and systematic” during and after the Oct. 7 massacre.
Victims were found partially or fully naked, with their hands tied, often to structures like trees or poles. Evidence of gang rape followed by execution, genital mutilation and public humiliation was also found.
“The vast majority of those who were sexually assaulted were among the 1,166 who were murdered in the attack and therefore silenced forever,” according to the report.
It took more than 17 months for the first victim to recount her terrifying experiences, suggesting that “Given the process of healing from traumatic experience, we can expect that more information will surface in the future,” the report states. However, it notes that “many of those who did survive are likely to be too traumatized to be able to recount their experience.”
This is an edited version of an article originally published by Israel Hayom.
