The United Nations on Friday added Israel and Russia to a UN blacklist of countries suspected of committing sexual violence in conflict zones, a move that prompted Israel’s Foreign Ministry to say it would cut all ties with UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
Guterres’ annual report to the UN Security Council on conflict-related sexual violence goes a step further than last year, when he put Israel and Russia ‘on alert’ that they could be added to the list of parties ‘credibly suspected of committing or being responsible for patterns of rape or other forms of sexual violence’.
The latest report does this and contains harrowing descriptions of abuses at the hands of the Israeli and Russian military and security forces.
Israel’s enemy Hamas, whose October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel triggered the war in Gaza, was already on the list, and in a post on X on Thursday, Israel’s UN ambassador Danny Danon said classifying Israel with the militant group would mark a ‘new rock bottom’.
‘This is a political decision! Disconnected from facts and reality!’, stated Danon in another post from the Israeli mission to the UN, which said he was informed about this during a phone call with Guterres.
Russia’s UN mission did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report, which Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha welcomed in a post on X.
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Damage to reputation
Inclusion on the list does not automatically entail specific punitive measures such as sanctions, although the naming and public shaming can cause significant damage to the reputation of the States involved, and those that are repeatedly listed are barred from participating in UN peacekeeping operations.
Danon said Israel responded in detail to each allegation and invited UN representatives to visit and examine the situation, but that they chose not to do so.
‘Given that António Guterres chose to violate all standards of honesty, integrity and professionalism, Israel has decided to cut all ties with the Secretary-General’s office and will wait until a new UN Secretary-General is appointed’, published the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs in X.
A new UN secretary-general is expected to be appointed later this year.
The report’s compiler, Pramila Patten, Guterres’s special representative for sexual violence in conflict, confirmed at a press conference that there was an invitation from Israel, but also referred to disagreements over the scope of the visit and related issues of access and cooperation, and said that it ultimately had to be suspended due to the war in Gaza.
She said that cases of conflict-related sexual violence verified by the United Nations around the world increased by more than 100% in 2025 compared to 2024 and called it a very disturbing trend that was still just the ‘tip of the iceberg’.
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‘This number can be attributed to the fact that we are going through a time when we have a record number of extremely violent conflicts and the fact that the aggressors are feeling emboldened by a context of impunity,’ she declared.
