A heated exchange broke out between Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon and senior United Nations officials during a high-level meeting in New York marking the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict. The confrontation escalated when Danon demanded the resignation of Pramila Patten, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative, after a recent report listed Israel for the first time among countries accused of conflict-related sexual violence.

Vanessa Frazier, another UN official and author of a separate report on children and armed conflict, objected to Danon’s remarks, urging him to refrain from personal attacks. She defended the report’s findings as evidence-based. Frazier’s report highlighted violence and rights violations against Palestinian children and warned that Israeli settler groups could also face future blacklisting. UN Secretary-General António Guterres described the rise in such violations as deeply concerning.

Earlier, Israel had already been included in the UN’s so-called “list of shame” for violations against children, intensifying diplomatic tensions over the reports’ findings.