A major diplomatic firestorm has erupted after United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres published his annual Conflict-Related Sexual Violence report Friday, formally adding Israel to a global list of actors documented to perpetrate systematic sexual violence against vulnerable populations—prompting an immediate, sweeping retaliation from Jerusalem that includes cutting all official ties with Guterres’ office.
The escalation did not come out of nowhere. Twelve months earlier, Guterres had placed Israel on formal notice, warning that the country would be added to the report if it continued to block UN investigators from accessing conflict zones and detention facilities to probe allegations of abuse. Long-standing UN documentation has tracked allegations of Israeli institutional sexual violence against Palestinians for years, including a 2025 March report that labeled such abuse “systematic” across the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank, followed by a July update that highlighted recurring patterns of genital assault and burns against detained Palestinians.
Israeli officials got an advance look at an internal draft of the new report earlier this week, and moved quickly to announce their break. In a Thursday statement, Israel’s UN mission said it would end all cooperation with Guterres, with Israeli ambassador Danny Danon confronting the secretary-general over the listing in a phone call before posting a blunt public rebuke on X: “WE’RE DONE WITH YOU! @antonioguterres.”
Speaking to Israeli broadcaster i24, Danon argued that listing Israeli service members alongside Hamas—an group Guterres also cited in the report for failing to address its own alleged sexual violence abuses during the October 7 attacks—crossed an unacceptable red line. “To put our soldiers, my son, my daughter, in the same list with the terrorists of Hamas, who committed the horrible crimes of October 7… There is a line, and we decided that enough is enough,” he said.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry doubled down on the criticism, dismissing the report’s findings as “shameful and absurd” and framing the UN as a deeply politicized, corrupt body that has abandoned its founding mission to target Israel unfairly. “Israel has decided to sever all ties with the Secretary-General’s Office and will wait until a new UN Secretary-General is appointed,” the ministry’s statement read. Guterres’ current five-year term is set to conclude on December 31.
The United States echoed Israel’s outrage, with US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz calling the UN’s decision to list Israel “ridiculous.” He claimed the move unfairly equates a democratic state with independent rule of law and mechanisms to hold abusive actors accountable with terrorist organizations.
For its part, the UN has refused to back down or revise the document. When Middle East Eye reached out to Guterres’ office for comment, spokesperson Stephane Dujarric confirmed that the secretary-general stands firmly behind the report’s findings, saying “the report has been issued and is not open for change.” A day prior, Dujarric had told reporters that Guterres’ door remains open to Israeli representatives despite the split.
The 2025 report, which documents cases of sexual violence occurring from 2023 onward, lists 31 verified instances of sexual abuse used as a tool of torture by Israeli security forces against Palestinians, the vast majority of whom were being held in Israeli detention. Ten of the documented victims are children. The report details a wide range of violations, including rape with objects, gang rape, attempted rape, targeted genital violence including deliberate shootings, unwanted sexual touching, unjustified invasive cavity and strip searches, forced nudity, and explicit threats of sexual assault.
Guterres found that perpetrators span multiple branches of Israel’s national security apparatus, including regular Israel Defense Forces units, the Israel Prison Service, the elite Keter special operations unit, and the national police Counter-Terrorism Unit, widely known by its Hebrew acronym Yamam. The documented abuses occurred at multiple detention and interrogation sites across Israel and the occupied territories, including military bases such as Sde Teiman, Etzion, and Majnunah, and civilian prisons including Megiddo, Ofer, Ramla, Hasharon, Shatta, Nafha and Damon, as well as Gush Etzion police station.
Victims include working journalists and human rights defenders, the report notes, with patterns of abuse differing by gender: female detainees primarily face threats of rape, forced nudity, unwanted touching, and dehumanizing unjustified strip searches, while male and minor male detainees are disproportionately targeted with rape, attempted rape, and severe genital violence. The report documents five male victims who suffered extended rectal bleeding and swelling that lasted for days or weeks, in many cases without access to any form of medical treatment.
Beyond the abuse itself, Guterres highlighted two key ongoing failures: the Israeli government’s persistent refusal to grant UN investigative bodies access to sites and detainees to probe allegations, and Hamas’ refusal to acknowledge or address any claims of sexual violence committed by its members. To date, Guterres added, no Israeli security force member has been indicted in Israel for the sexual assault of Palestinian detainees.
The UN report follows a high-profile investigative column published earlier this month by New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nicholas Kristof, who detailed graphic accounts of abuse including sexual assault with animals, vegetables, and batons that left victims with permanent internal injuries. Kristof drew direct connection to US policy, writing that American tax dollars subsidize the Israeli security establishment, making the United States complicit in the documented abuse. He called on Washington to condition military aid to Israel on an immediate end to the abuse, and pressed US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, an avowed Zionist, to meet with survivors and protect them from retaliation for speaking out.
Israeli officials swiftly condemned Kristof’s column as a “blood libel,” launching widespread calls for The New York Times to retract the piece and terminate Kristof’s employment. For years, the Israeli government has also blocked the International Committee of the Red Cross from accessing Palestinian detention facilities to inspect conditions, a long-standing restriction that has drawn little international attention until recent months.