The United Nations has added Israeli entities to a blacklist of countries that commit sexual violence in conflict zones – a list which includes Hamas and other terror organizations. The Jerusalem Post learned of this exclusively on Wednesday night.
The Israeli Prison Service will be included on the 2026 list, along with other Israeli authorities that have entered a monitoring framework for the possibility of future inclusion.
A country or armed group remains on the UN Secretary-General’s list for a minimum of one year. Hamas was added in August 2025.
This development follows reports by the UN Secretary-General’s representative on sexual violence in conflict, Pramila Patten, which determined that there were reasonable grounds for Hamas to have committed acts of rape and sexual violence during the October 7 massacre and during the hostages’ captivity in Gaza.
Israel claims that following Hamas’ inclusion, heavy pressure was exerted on the UN Secretary-General to include Israel on the list as well.
In fact, in August 2025, UN Secretary-General António Guterres placed Israel “on notice” for potential inclusion in the UN’s formal blacklist of parties credibly suspected of committing patterns of sexual violence in armed conflict, citing “significant concerns” regarding alleged patterns of abuse, claims that Israel denies.
Over the past year, several meetings have taken place between Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon and his delegation and representatives of the Secretary-General and his team.
Israel provided documents, data, and a detailed response to all the claims raised in the reports and drafts that were forwarded to Israel. In addition, Israel invited UN personnel to visit the country and sites of atrocities and closely examine the false claims.
Nevertheless, despite the information provided, the UN Secretary-General has chosen to include Israel on the list.
Israel freezes relations with UN Secretary-General’s Office
Israel has reactively announced the freezing of relations with the UN Secretary-General’s Office and the cancellation of Pramila Patten’s planned visit to Israel.
Israel made it clear that it would not maintain contact with the UN Secretary-General’s Office as long as Guterres heads the organization.
“The UN Secretary-General has put Israel on the same blacklist as Hamas, ISIS, and the most depraved terrorist organizations in the world,” Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, told the Post. “This is a moral disgrace and a complete collapse of any credibility left to the UN.”
Danon explained that Israel cooperated with the UN, provided information, and acted with full transparency.
He said the UN Secretary-General chose to ignore the facts and “continue the campaign of incitement and lies against Israel.”
“Anyone who is able to include Israel on the same list as Hamas terrorists and rapists has no sense of morality,” he continued.
“António Guterres, who justified the October 7 massacre, whitewashed the involvement of UNRWA employees in the massacre, and led the organization to an unprecedented low, is using the last months of his term to advance political and false accusations against Israel.”
Guterres’ term will end on December 31, 2026. This means that the inclusion of Israel on the list comes amid a leadership contest. A source close to the issue told the Post that Israel sees this as Guterres’ attempt at a ‘last hurrah.’
It also comes amid a major fiscal crisis: the UN is facing the deepest liquidity in its 80-year history, propelled by $1.56 billion in unpaid member state dues.
New York Times op-ed perpetuates accusations of sexual violence
Not only this – the news comes just over two weeks after the New York Times published a highly controversial op-ed by journalist Nicholas Kristof about the alleged “pattern of widespread sexual violence against [Palestinian] men, women, and even children – by [Israeli] soldiers, settlers, interrogators in the Shin Bet internal security agency, and, above all, prison guards.”
Kristof admitted that “there is no evidence that Israeli leaders order rapes,” but claimed that the security apparatus has created a culture in which “sexual violence has become one of Israel’s ‘standard operating procedures.'”
He wrote his op-ed based on “conversations with 14 men and women who said they had been sexually assaulted by Israeli settlers or members of the security forces.”
He cited one alleged prisoner who claimed that Israel Prison Service officers forced items up his rectum.
Another alleged prisoner from Gaza claimed that he was “held down, stripped naked, and as he was blindfolded and handcuffed, a dog was summoned,” before the dog attempted to “mount him.”
He also accused the US of being “complicit” in the alleged sexual violence, as “American tax dollars subsidize the Israeli security establishment.”
Israel’s Foreign Ministry called it “one of the worst blood libels ever to appear in the modern press.”
“In an unfathomable inversion of reality, and through an endless stream of baseless lies, propagandist Nicholas Kristof turns the victim into the accused. Israel – whose citizens were the victims of the most horrific sexual crimes committed by Hamas on October 7, and whose hostages were later subjected to further sexual abuse – is portrayed as the guilty party.”
The foreign ministry said the article’s publication “is no coincidence” and forms part of a “false and well-orchestrated anti-Israel campaign aimed at placing Israel on the UN Secretary-General’s blacklist.”
This has now – of course – happened.
The Foreign Ministry also denounced the NYT for publishing the op-ed and not the findings of Israel’s Civil Commission into Hamas’s systemic violence during, and since, the October 7 massacre.
This two-year independent investigation into the sexual and gender-based crimes committed during the October 7 massacre and against hostages in Hamas captivity found that sexual and gender-based violence was systematic, widespread, and integral to the attack.
While it is not clear, the source told the Post that the NYT article may have given the UN additional power to make the move to blacklist Israel.
‘A major blight on the UN’
US-based human rights advocate, attorney, and policy expert Elliot M. Malin told the Post that the move is a “major blight on the UN, the entire professional apparatus, and an indictment on its ability to objectively weigh in on conflict.”
“It’s directly contrary to the purpose of the UN and its establishment. In an institution where they commonly single out and demean a democracy while ignoring the atrocities of totalitarian states, even elevating them to prominent roles in UN appendant bodies, this is just another demonstration of the inability of the UN to act in a fair and balanced manner,” he said.
He condemned the way in which international institutions are being “weaponized for lawfare.”
“If democracies want the UN to survive, they must act to clean house. Antonio Guterres must be forced to retract this reprehensible action, and the UN must be completely audited for systemic bias.”
“Every democratic state should withhold its citizens’ tax dollars from going to the UN until this is retracted and the house has been cleaned,” he concluded.
Jonathan Turner, Chief Executive of UK Lawyers for Israel, told the Post, “The UN regularly applies different standards and frequently circulates false and distorted information in relation to Israel.”
He said any comparison between allegations made against the Israeli prison service and the atrocities of Hamas and other Gazans on 7 October 2023 and then towards the hostages they held in the following two years “would be highly offensive and misleading.”
Turner encouraged everyone, especially UN officials, to read the Civil Commission’s meticulous report titled “Silenced No More” on those atrocities.
“One day people will wonder how the UN could have behaved in this way, just as we now find it so difficult to comprehend the conduct of courts and tribunals that endorsed or participated in previous persecutions of Jews,” he said.
