Key Points
- Israel will be included on the UN’s annual list of countries it deems to be failing to protect children in war.
- Israel’s ambassador to the UN was privately notified of the inclusion, saying he was “utterly shocked and disgusted”.
- Hamas and Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad will also reportedly be included on the list.
The upcoming inclusion of Israel on a UN list of countries and armed forces determined to be failing to protect children in war prompted a furious Israeli response Friday.
The annual Children and Armed Conflict report from UN Secretary-General António Guterres is not due to be published until 18 June, but Israel’s UN ambassador, Gilad Erdan, spoke out after receiving private notification of the inclusion.
“I am utterly shocked and disgusted by this shameful decision,” Erdan said in a statement.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted on his X social media account that the UN “put itself today on history’s blacklist when it adopted the absurd claims of Hamas”.
“The IDF is the most moral military in the world and no ‘flat earth’ decision by the UN secretary-general can change that,” he wrote, referring to the Israel Defence Forces.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticised the inclusion in a post on social media platform X. Source: AAP / Gil Cohen-Magen/AP
The Palestinian envoy to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, said adding Israel to the “list of shame” would not restore the lives of children killed or left permanently disabled in Israeli military attacks.
“But it is an important step in the right direction towards ending the double standards and the culture of impunity Israel has enjoyed for far too long and that left our children vulnerable,” he said on X.
A diplomatic source told the Agence France-Press that Hamas and another Palestinian militant group, Islamic Jihad, would also appear on the list.
Erdan lashed out at Guterres personally, saying: “The only one who is blacklisted today is the secretary-general.”
The UN report highlights human rights violations against children in around 20 conflict zones.
It covers things like killing, maiming, sexual abuse, abduction, denial of aid access, and targeting of schools and hospitals.
However, it hasn’t been made clear yet exactly which of these things Israel is being formally accused of.
Last year, Russia’s military and armed entities linked to Russia were included on the list.
Rights groups have long pushed for Israel’s inclusion and in 2022, the UN issued a warning that Israel would need to show improvements in order not to be added.
In last year’s report, the UN noted improvements in the situation between 2021 and 2022, with a “meaningful” drop in deaths of children in Israeli strikes.
Louis Charbonneau, from Human Rights Watch, called Israel’s inclusion “thoroughly justified, albeit long overdue”.
“It’s something we’ve long called for, along with listing Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups,” he said.
Deadly Israeli airstrikes continue in Rafah
Israel has struck central and southern areas again, killing at least 28 Palestinians, and tank forces advanced to the western edges of Rafah.
A month after rumbling into Rafah in what Israel said was an assault to wipe out Hamas’ last intact combat units, tank-led forces have advanced to the southwest fringes of the city that skirts the Gaza Strip’s border with Egypt, residents said.
Gaza health officials said two Palestinians had been killed and several wounded in western Rafah from tank shelling there.
In central Gaza, Palestinian medics said at least 15 people died overnight in Israeli bombardments.
An Israeli strike on a Gaza school killed as many as 40 people, medics said. Israel says it killed 17 militants in the attack. Source: AAP / Middle East Images/ABACA/PA
In the larger city of Khan Younis just to the north of Rafah, an Israeli air strike on a house killed eight people and wounded several, medics said.
In north Gaza, three Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a Gaza City school building that was sheltering displaced families, rescue workers said.
The Israeli military said it had targeted Hamas gunmen operating from a container inside the school premises, similar to its explanation for an air strike on a UN school building in Nuseirat in central Gaza on Thursday that medics said killed 40 people.
On Friday, Israel said it had killed 17 militants it said were operating from the school in the strike.
Hamas denied the claim, accusing the Israeli army of spreading “false information”.
Around 6,000 displaced people were sheltering at that site, the UN said.
Israel’s military blames Hamas for Gaza’s high civilian death toll, accusing it of operating within densely populated neighbourhoods, schools and hospitals as cover, something it denies. UN and humanitarian officials accuse Israel of using disproportionate force in the war, which it denies.
Israel has bombarded Gaza since Hamas’ 7 October attack in which more than 1,200 people were killed and over 200 hostages taken, according to the Israeli government.
More than 36,700 people have been killed in Gaza since 7 October, according to the health ministry in Gaza.
Thousands more are feared buried dead under rubble, and most of the 2.3 million population displaced.
The 7 October attack was a significant escalation in the long-standing conflict between Israel and Hamas.
