The United Nations Security Council will hold an emergency session on Monday to discuss the report issued this week by the UN’s envoy on sex crimes detailing the sexual violence perpetrated by Palestinian terrorists on October 7 and against hostages who have been held since.

Requests for the session were made by Security Council members — the US, the UK and France.

Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a statement that he was planning on attending the session along with relatives of the hostages still being held by Hamas and would use the opportunity to demand that the UN declare Hamas a terrorist organization and demand the immediate release of the hostages.

The Security Council has adopted several resolutions already demanding the release of the hostages.

Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan will also attend the meeting after being recalled to Israel for consultations with Katz earlier this week.

“I thank all the countries who supported our request to convene the Security Council to debate the severe findings and publish an explicit condemnation against Hamas for its sexual crimes and call for the immediate release of all the hostages in Gaza,” said Katz, adding that he expected more countries to join the request.

“This is a big victory for justice and morality and an important step in the journey to bringing the hostages home.”

The emergency meeting was requested following the publication of a report by the UN’s special representative on sexual violence in conflict, Pramila Patten, in which she said that there was “clear and convincing information” to indicate that hostages held captive in Gaza were subjected to “sexual violence including rape, sexualized torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.”

Patten added that her office believed that such treatment was ongoing against the hostages that still remained in Gaza.

She also said that there were “reasonable grounds” to believe that Hamas terrorists perpetrated rape and gang rape against victims in at least three main locations during their October 7 attack on Israel in which they murdered some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped 253.

Following the publication of the report, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was expected to convene the Security Council himself but did not, leading the US, the UK and France to do so instead.

In his statement on Friday, Katz spoke out against Guterres, accusing him of continuing to be blind and deaf to the hostages’ suffering “as if nothing happened.”

“On International Women’s Day of all days, his continued silence is disgraceful and a stain on him that cannot be removed,” he said.

The UN secretary-general drew further Israeli outrage on Friday during a speech he made at the UN Economic and Social Council in honor of International Women’s Day.

In his speech, Guterres warned that women’s rights were threatening to regress worldwide. As an example, he mentioned Patten’s report, equating her findings with unproven “reports of sexual violence against Palestinian detainees.”

He also presented Hamas’s unverifiable reports of casualties in Gaza as fact saying the UN has “witnessed maternity services crumbling in Gaza where women and children make up the majority of the tens of thousands killed and injured.”

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza claims that almost 31,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in the war, but the number cannot be independently verified as it is believed to include both Hamas terrorists and civilians, some of whom were killed as a consequence of the terror group’s own rocket misfires.

The IDF says it has killed over 13,000 terrorists in Gaza, in addition to some 1,000 who were killed inside Israel on and immediately following October 7.

Guterres’s speech was heavily criticized by Erdan who said that “the secretary-general once again publicly proved his bias and hatred against Israel.”

“What sort of distorted conscience can the secretary-general have to dare equate between proof of sexual abuse, rape and war crimes that Israeli women were put through on October 7, which our hostages are still experiencing, and false and baseless claims of physical searches of Palestinian women suspected of terrorism?” he said.

The UN, and its women’s organization in particular, were heavily criticized for its slow response to the reports of Hamas’s sexual violence that began to emerge shortly after October 7. It took eight weeks for UN Women to condemn the attacks, which it did in December, saying it condemned the atrocities of October 7 and was “alarmed” by the reports of sexual violence.

Guterres has also been heavily criticized by Israel throughout the war for statements he made condemning the country for the casualties in Gaza and repeatedly calling for a ceasefire. He has also defended UNRWA, the UN’s Palestinian aid organization, after Israel accused many of its members of being involved in October 7 attacks and holding hostages in their homes.

The UN secretary-general’s comments have led Israeli officials to accuse him of cooperating with and covering for Hamas. Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana was supposed to meet with him last month during a diplomatic visit to the US but canceled, calling Guterres a lost cause.

Amy Spiro contributed to this report.