UN Secretary-General António Guterres has been banned from Israel following Iran

The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, has been banned from entering Israel because of his response to Iran’s ballistic missile launch.

In a statement, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz called Guterres “an anti-Israel secretary-general who supports terrorists”.

Writing on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, after Iran fired about 180 missiles at Israel, Guterres said he condemned “the escalation of the Middle East conflict by escalation after escalation” and said it “must end”.

He said the region “really needs” an end to the shooting, but did not specifically mention the attack on Iran.

In a statement on Wednesday, Katz declared the UN secretary-general persona non grata, saying that anyone “who cannot unequivocally condemn Iran’s heinous attack on Israel should not set foot on Israeli soil”.

He strongly criticized Guterres for “his policy against Israel since the beginning of the war”.

Tuesday’s attack on Iran is the latest in a series of escalations, which began nearly a year ago with attacks on Israel by Hamas, and most recently have included an increase in hostilities between Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel.

Israel launched a military operation in Gaza in response to an unprecedented attack in southern Israel on October 7 by Hamas gunmen, in which approximately 1,200 people were killed and 251 captured.

Since the attack, the military operation in Gaza has now killed 41,689 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

In the course of this conflict there have been many disputes between Israel and the United Nations regarding the status of Gaza and the West Bank.

There have also been disagreements between Israel and the UN over the role of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

In January, Israel suspected that a number of the agency’s employees were involved in the October 7 attack.

In response, the agency launched an investigation – and several of its international donors withdrew their support, before later returning it. In August, nine employees were fired about possible involvement in the attack.

During the conflict, UNRWA criticized Israel for airstrikes in Gaza killed its employees.