A government spokesman announced that Israel will stop issuing automatic visas to United Nations staff. The decision was framed as a response to what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs described as a hostile reaction from Secretary‑General António Guterres and certain UN bodies following the Hamas assault on Israeli soil on October 7.
The spokesman stated that visas would no longer be granted automatically and would instead be evaluated on a case‑by‑case basis, reflecting a shift in how UN personnel are processed amid the ongoing conflict.
The Hamas operation on October 7 involved coordinated rocket fire and a large–scale infiltration by nearly 3,000 militants who attacked Israeli communities in multiple locations. The attack resulted in approximately 1,200 fatalities and the kidnapping of about 250 people in border towns near Gaza.
On October 24, Guterres told the UN Security Council that Hamas’s actions did not occur in isolation. He noted that the Palestinian population has faced a prolonged occupation for 56 years, pointing to the West Bank and East Jerusalem and arguing that these conditions contravene international law and, by some human rights organizations, resemble apartheid. He emphasized that the Palestinian people have endured ongoing land seizures by settlements, violence, economic hardship, displacement, and the destruction of homes, eroding the prospects for a political resolution.
Despite these grievances, Guterres stressed that the Palestinian cause cannot justify the Hamas attacks or the collective punishment of civilians. He condemned the ongoing, intensive military campaigns across the Gaza Strip, which have led to significant casualties and widespread displacement.
In December, Israel urged the resignation of Sami Bahous, the director of UN Women, from Jordan, accusing him of adopting a stance perceived as insufficiently condemnatory of gender‑based violence attributed to the Hamas attack. The agency had previously asserted a clear repudiation of the violence against Israel and called for investigations into gender‑based brutality reported during the attacks.
A separate statement in late November claimed that UN Security Council bodies and UNICEF, along with UN Women, had been viewed as consistently aligned with Hamas positions or indifferent to the suffering and the data about victims provided by the Israeli government. The remarks spotlighted tensions over how international institutions report and respond to the conflict and its human impact.