From the Liveblog of
Wednesday, October 2, 2024
FM Katz declares UN chief Guterres ‘persona non grata’ in Israel over response to Iran attack
Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter
Foreign Minister Israel Katz announces that he has designated UN Secretary General António Guterres “persona non grata,” meaning the Portuguese diplomat cannot enter Israel.
The Foreign Ministry says the decision is a reaction to Guterres’s response after Iran’s missile attack last night, “in which he failed to mention Iran by name and did not unequivocally condemn its grave aggression.”
Israel Guterres’s policies throughout the war have “provided backing to terrorists, rapists and murderers from Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, and now to the mothership of global terror, Iran.”
In a statement, Katz says that “anyone who cannot unequivocally condemn Iran’s heinous attack on Israel, as nearly all the countries of the world have done, does not deserve to set foot on Israeli soil.”
It was not immediately clear if Katz has the authority to bar Guterres from the country, and reports in Hebrew media cite authorities from the Population, Immigration and Border Authority as saying such authority would lie only with the interior minister.
