Israel slams UN officials for holding talk with Iranian FM over future of Gaza

Iran’s foreign minister is in Geneva for a previously undisclosed meeting hosted by a leading humanitarian group that works to strike peace agreements.

Hossein Amir-Abdollahian speaks with the UN’s top humanitarian aid official, Martin Griffiths, in a meeting at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, which made headlines five years ago for its role in an accord in which the Basque separatist group ETA agreed to dissolve after a decades-long campaign in Spain, officials said.

The Israeli ambassador in Geneva, Meirav Eilon Shahar, posts on X that “Israel expresses its indignation that the foreign minister of Iran is in Geneva and meeting with UN officials and NGOs to talk about the ‘humanitarian situation in Gaza.'”

“Iran has no place in the future of Gaza. It is part of the problem, not the solution,” she adds.

The center says in a message sent to The Associated Press that it “routinely convenes closed-door consultations to support conflict mediation and resolution in various parts of the world.”

“In the latest of these consultations, HD hosted a senior Iranian delegation and other invited guests for a discussion about Gaza focused on ways to alleviate human suffering, increase humanitarian assistance and reduce risks of escalation in the region,” the statement says.