The terrible impact of Israel's war on Gaza on children will have an “extremely dark place in history”, a UN committee says.
A United Nations committee has accused Israel of serious violations of a global treaty protecting children's rights, saying its military actions in Gaza have had a catastrophic impact on children and are among the worst violations in recent history.
More than 11,355 children have been killed in Gaza since the war sparked by Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel began on October 7. More than 1,100 people, mostly Israeli civilians, were killed in the Hamas-led attacks and some 250 were taken prisoner. In response, Israel has waged war on the besieged enclave, killing more than 41,000 people and reducing large swathes of Palestinian territory to rubble.
“The shocking deaths of children are almost unique in history. This is an extremely dark moment in history,” Bragi Gudbrandsson, vice-chairman of the committee, told reporters on Thursday.
“I don't think we've ever seen such a massive violation as we've seen in Gaza. These are extremely serious violations that we don't see very often,” he said.
In addition to the casualties recorded by the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza, thousands of children are believed to be missing under the rubble, buried in unmarked graves or seriously injured by explosives, British aid group Save the Children said in a report published in June.
According to an Al Jazeera tally from January – when the number of children killed in Israel's war on Gaza was around 10,000 – a Palestinian child was killed there every 15 minutes.
The 18-member U.N. committee oversees countries' compliance with the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, a widely adopted treaty that seeks to protect children from violence and other abuses.
Israel, which ratified the treaty in 1991, sent a large delegation to the UN hearings in Geneva on 3 and 4 September.
Palestinians argued that the treaty does not apply in Gaza or the occupied West Bank, but that Israel is committed to respecting international humanitarian law. They say their military campaign in Gaza is aimed at eliminating Hamas and is not targeting civilians but Palestinian fighters hiding among them, something Hamas denies.
Civilians and health workers on the ground have repeatedly told Al Jazeera that since 7 October there have been attacks on homes without warning or ongoing fighting, and that entire families have been wiped out in Israeli airstrikes.
The committee praised Israel for attending the hearings, but said it “deeply regrets the State party’s repeated denial of its legal obligations.”
In its findings, the committee called on Israel to provide urgent assistance to thousands of children maimed or injured by the war, support orphans and allow more medical evacuations from Gaza.
The UN body has no means to enforce its recommendations, although countries generally try to comply with them.
During the hearings, UN experts also asked many questions about Israeli children, including details about those taken captive by Hamas, to which the Israeli delegation gave extensive answers.
Sabine Tassa, mother of a 17-year-old boy shot dead in the October 7 attacks, addressed the UN hearings and said the surviving children were traumatised.
“The children of Israel are in a terrible situation,” he said.
