TEL AVIV, March 4. /TASS/. Israel's Permanent Representative to the UN Gilad Erdan has been recalled from New York for consultations, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said, explaining the decision by ‘attempts to hush up’ at the UN a report on sexual violence by armed supporters of the radical Palestinian movement Hamas on October 7, 2023.

The top diplomat instructed the UN ambassador to return to Israel "for immediate consultations over the attempt to silence a serious report at the UN on the mass rapes committed by Hamas and its associates on October 7," Katz wrote on his page on messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7 after militants from the Gaza Strip-based radical Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise incursion on Israeli territory, killing many Israeli kibbutz residents living near the Gaza border and abducting more than 200 Israelis, including women, children and the elderly. Hamas described its attack as a response to Israeli authorities’ aggressive actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. Israel declared a total blockade of the Gaza Strip and launched bombardments of the enclave and some areas in Lebanon and Syria, as well as a ground operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Clashes are also reported in the West Bank.