The United Nations is adding Israel to its so-called “blacklist” of countries that have committed abuses against children in armed conflict, an Israeli diplomat confirmed, as thousands of Palestinian children have died in the Israeli army's continued attack on the Gaza Strip. . .
In a social media post on Friday, Israel's UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan said he received official notification of the decision from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
“This is simply outrageous and wrong,” Erdan wrote, alongside a video of him speaking on the phone and condemning the move.
“I responded to the shameful decision and said that our army is the most moral in the world. The only one on the blacklist is the Secretary General who encourages and encourages terrorism and is motivated by hatred of Israel.”
Commenting on Erdan's comments later that day, Guterres spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said a UN official had called the Israeli envoy as “a courtesy extended to countries recently listed in the annex” to the annual report. “Children in armed conflicts.”
“It is done to warn those countries and prevent leaks,” Dujarric told reporters, adding that the report will be presented to the UN Security Council on June 14 and officially published a few days later.
“The video recording of that phone call made by Ambassador Erdan and the partial posting of that recording on Twitter is shocking and unacceptable and, frankly, is something I have never seen in my 24 years of service in this organization,” Dujarric said. .
I received official notification about the Secretary General's decision to put the IDF on the “blacklist” of countries and organizations that harm children. This is simply scandalous and wrong because Hamas has been using children for terrorism and using schools and hospitals… pic.twitter.com/o1civfJFAk
— Ambassador Gilad Erdan גלעד ארדן (@giladerdan1) June 7, 2024
Palestinian Authority welcomes decision
The annual report on children in armed conflict compiles “a list of parties that commit violations against children,” including murder and maiming, sexual violence, and attacks on schools and hospitals.
Guterres faced criticism from Palestinian rights advocates for failing to place Israel on the so-called list of shame, which included Russia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Syria and Haiti.
The blacklist aims to identify parties involved in abuses against children. But other countries can use it to restrict gun sales to violators.
Senior Palestinian official Riad Malki welcomed the UN decision on Friday and said the move was already necessary.
“Now, faced with the catastrophe in Gaza that the world sees with the naked eye with the genocide that specifically targets children and women, the UN Secretary General no longer has any excuses not to place Israel on the blacklist,” Malki said in a statement.
Human rights groups have condemned the terrible toll that Israel's bombing and siege of Gaza has taken on Palestinian children across the enclave.
More than 36,700 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since early October, including 15,571 children, according to the Gaza government's media office.
UN experts have also said that Israel's restrictions on deliveries of food, water, medicine and other critical supplies have created a humanitarian crisis, with parts of the coastal territory facing the threat of famine.
Earlier this week, the UN children's rights agency UNICEF said nine in 10 Palestinian children in Gaza were living in “severe child food poverty, surviving on diets comprising two or fewer food groups per day, one of the highest percentages ever recorded.”
By comparison, in 2020, only 13 percent of children in the Gaza Strip lived in severe child food poverty, UNICEF said.
The World Health Organization also said last week that more than four in five Palestinian children in Gaza “did not eat for an entire day at least once in the three days” ahead of a survey on food insecurity.
Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCIP) has also reported on the dire consequences that Israel's continued military attack on Gaza is having on Palestinian children, including thousands of people who have been seriously injured since October.
The collapse of Gaza's health system has meant that many patients, including children, cannot receive the care they need, the group said.
“Palestinian children who survive Israeli attacks face a lifetime of recovery to recover from physical and psychological trauma,” Ayed Abu Eqtaish, director of DCIP's accountability program, said in a statement Wednesday.
In testimony collected by DCIP, a 15-year-old Palestinian boy named Mohammad described his difficult road to recovery after he was shot in the back by an Israeli quadcopter in March.
He is now paralyzed in the lower part of his body.
“I spend most of my time on a mattress, lying on my back. Also, I suffer from ulcers from sitting for a long time and they have not healed yet. Medicines for these wounds and painkillers are expensive and my father cannot always afford them,” Mohammad told DCIP.
“I loved playing football as I was always a goalkeeper,” he said. “I also loved repairing watches and appliances, but now I can't do it because of my disability.”
In January, Save the Children said more than 10 children in Gaza lose limbs daily.
But Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz criticized the UN decision on Friday, calling it “shameful.”
“He [Israeli military] It is the most moral army in the world, and no fictitious report will change that. “This step will have consequences for Israel’s relations with the UN,” Katz said in a social media post.
