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UN Decries Israeli Ban on Guterres Entering the Country

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres listens to the United Nations Security Council meeting, following a ballistic missile attack on Israel, at UN headquarters in New York City, US, October 2, 2024. REUTERS/Stephani Spindel
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres listens to the United Nations Security Council meeting, following a ballistic missile attack on Israel, at UN headquarters in New York City, US, October 2, 2024. REUTERS/Stephani Spindel
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UN Decries Israeli Ban on Guterres Entering the Country

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres listens to the United Nations Security Council meeting, following a ballistic missile attack on Israel, at UN headquarters in New York City, US, October 2, 2024. REUTERS/Stephani Spindel
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres listens to the United Nations Security Council meeting, following a ballistic missile attack on Israel, at UN headquarters in New York City, US, October 2, 2024. REUTERS/Stephani Spindel

The United Nations has said Israel’s ban on Secretary-General Antonio Guterres entering the country is a “political statement.”

UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters Wednesday that Foreign Minister Israel Katz saying Guterres is “persona non grata” is “one more attack on the United Nations staff that we’ve seen from the government of Israel.”

Katz accuses Guterres of being biased against Israel, and says he never condemned Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on southern Israel. Israel also claims staff from the UN aid agency helping Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, are Hamas members who participated in the Oct. 7 attacks.

Dujarric countered that Guterres has repeatedly condemned the Hamas attacks and sexual violence, and stressed that the UN still engages with Israel “at the operational level and other levels.”

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Helene's Toll Reaches 200 as US Crews Try to Reach Most Remote Areas Hit Storm

A woman walks to her damaged home in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024, in Pensacola, N.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
A woman walks to her damaged home in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024, in Pensacola, N.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
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Helene's Toll Reaches 200 as US Crews Try to Reach Most Remote Areas Hit Storm

A woman walks to her damaged home in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024, in Pensacola, N.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
A woman walks to her damaged home in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024, in Pensacola, N.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Hurricane Helene's death toll reached 200 on Thursday and could rise higher still, as searchers made their way toward the hardest to reach places in the mountains of western North Carolina.

Officials in Georgia and North Carolina added to their states' grim tallies, padding an overall count that has already made Helene the deadliest storm to hit the US mainland since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

A week after the storm came ashore in Florida before carving a path of destruction through the Southeast, connections between friends, neighbors and even strangers have provided hope in the worst-affected areas.

Government cargo planes brought food and water to these areas and rescue crews waded through creeks searching for survivors, The Associated Press reported.

Helping one another in remote mountain areas, helicopters hoisted the stranded to safety while search crews moved toppled trees so they could look door to door for survivors. In some places, homes teetered on hillsides and washed-out riverbanks.
Electricity is being slowly restored, as the number of homes and businesses without power dipped below 1 million for the first time since last weekend, according to poweroutage.us. Most of the outages are in the Carolinas and Georgia, where Helene struck after barreling over Florida’s Gulf Coast on Sept. 26 as a Category 4 hurricane. Deaths have been reported in Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia, in addition to the Carolinas.