Members of the UN Security Council (UNSC) on Wednesday rallied to the support of Secretary-General Antonio Guterres after Israel declared him ‘persona non grata’, barring him from that country and the occupied territories.

The Security Council President Pascale Baeriswyl, who is the permanent representative of Switzerland, said her country “reiterates its full support for the work of the Secretary-General”.

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That sentiment was echoed by all the countries on the Council during the emergency session on the Middle East – except the United States, whose permanent representative ignored it in her address.

Algeria’s Permanent Representative Amar Bendjama said Israel showed its disdain for the entire UN and the international community.

Japan’s Permanent Representative Yamazaki Kazuyuki thanked “Guterres for his sobering and important briefing today”.

Declaring Guterres persona non grata, Israel Katz, the foreign minister of Israel, said, “Anyone who cannot unequivocally condemn Iran’s heinous attack on Israel, as nearly all the countries of the world have done, does not deserve to set foot on Israeli soil”.

However, Guterres has condemned Iran’s attacks on Israel and he told the Council, “I again strongly condemn yesterday’s (Tuesday) massive missile attack by Iran on Israel”.

His Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric called Israel’s action “political”.

Briefing the Council, Guterres warned, “The raging fires in the Middle East are fast becoming an inferno”.

“It is high time to stop the sickening cycle of escalation after escalation that is leading the people of the Middle East straight over the cliff”, he said. “Each escalation has served as a pretext for the next”.

Surveying the attacks and counter-attacks in the region – from the Hamas-Israel conflict, the Israeli strikes on Hezbollah’s leadership and on Iran, Hezbollah’s offensive against Israel, Tehran’s missile attack on Israel, the deteriorating situation on the West Bank, and the terrorist attack in Jaffa – Guterres said, “This deadly cycle of tit-for-tat violence must stop”.

The Council meeting followed the barrage of Iranian missiles rained on Israel on Tuesday and Israel’s ground incursion into Lebanon in pursuit of Hezbollah, an Iran-affiliated group that controls swathes of Southern Lebanon.

Israel’s Permanent Representative Danny Dannon called the missile attacks “coldblooded” and said, “These scenes have not been witnessed since the Blitz in London” when Germany attacked Britain during World War II.

Iran’s Permanent Representative Amir Saied Iravani defended the attack asserting that it was in self-defence and was a “proportionate response to Israel’s continued terrorist aggressive acts over the past two months”.

Al-Sayyid Hadi Hashim, the Charge d’Affaires of the Lebanese UN Mission, describing the plight of his country said, it “is today caught between the hammer of the Israeli destruction machine and the ambitions of some in the region” a reference to Iran-backed Hezbollah that uses Lebanon to attack Israel.

US Permanent Representative Linda Thomas-Greenfield asked the Council to unanimously “condemn Iran for its unprovoked attack”.

She also demanded imposing “serious consequences” on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the main Iranian military outfit with an international footprint.

“We strongly warn against Iran – or its proxies – taking actions against the United States, or further actions against Israel”, she said.