In a bold and unprecedented move, Foreign Minister Israel Katz has launched a scathing critique against UN Secretary-General António Guterres in a letter revealed here for the first time. Katz accuses Guterres of presiding over a UN that intentionally distorts and selectively reports data about the aid Israel delivers to the Gaza Strip, with the aim of misleading global public opinion. "History will judge you for the moral stain that the UN bears under your tenure," Katz wrote emphatically.
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Israel Katz angry with the UN Secretary General
(Photo: AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP, Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
In the letter, Katz meticulously outlines the factual discrepancies between the UN's reports and the actual data, demanding that the UN correct the misinformation and issue a formal apology for "disseminating incomplete data that misrepresents the reality on the ground."
For example, the UN's reports have omitted more than 8,999 aid trucks that entered from Israel since the war began. In May alone, the UN excluded 4,880 trucks from its count. It disregards aid entering through the Erez Crossing and the American sea pier, focusing only on the aid entering through Kerem Shalom.
Katz also confronted Guterres with other instances of skewed reporting by UN agencies. One such example includes the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) abruptly halving the reported numbers of Palestinian children and women killed and injured in Gaza without any prior notice, attributing the change to the "fog of war" when questioned.