Israeli military placed on UN ‘blacklist’ in annual Children in Armed Conflict report
The UN’s annual report on Children in Armed Conflict, a copy of which was obtained by the Associated Press (AP) on Tuesday, provides details on why the Israeli military for the first time has been placed on a blacklist of countries that have killed and maimed children and attacked schools and hospitals.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres chief said in the report that he was “appalled by the dramatic increase and unprecedented scale and intensity of grave violations against children in the Gaza Strip, Israel and the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem”.
The magnitude of the Israeli military campaign against groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad “and the scope of death and destruction in the Gaza Strip have been unprecedented”, he said.
The report also listed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad for the first time as well for killing, injuring and abducting children, the AP reported.
In 2023, the report said, 5,698 grave violations against children were attributed to Israeli forces, 116 to Hamas, 58 to unidentified perpetrators, 51 to Israeli settlers, 21 to Islamic Jihad, 13 to Palestinian individuals, and one to Palestinian Authority Security Forces. The process of verifying the attribution of 2,051 other violations is ongoing.
The report said the UN had verified the killing of 2,267 Palestinian children in Gaza among some 9,100 children that have been reported killed in the territory “and verification is ongoing”.
And that's only for 2023, the war on children has been raging on got another 5 months since.
800 Palestinians killed in one week demonstrates Israel not adhering to international law: MSF
International medical charity Doctors without Borders (known by its French initials MSF) said Israel’s reported killing of more than 800 people and the wounding of more than 2,400 more in Gaza since the start of June highlights the Israeli military’s “disregard for Palestinian lives”.
“Numerous military offensives in recent weeks have led to recurrent mass casualty influxes,” MSF said in a statement, calling on Israeli forces to “halt these massacres”.
“How can the killing of more than 800 people in a single week… be considered a military operation adhering to international humanitarian law?” MSF emergency unit chief Brice de le Vingne said in a statement.
“We can no longer accept the statement that Israel is taking ‘all precautions’- this is just propaganda”, de la Vingne said. “Since October (and certainly before), the dehumanisation of Palestinians has been a hallmark of this war,” he added.
UNRWA head urges Germany to press Israel to halt deadly attacks on UN workers
The UNRWA chief has told Germany it must press Israel to stop its deadly attacks on UN aid workers.
“Germany must help the UN protect itself against Israel’s attacks. There is no contradiction, being a close friend of Israel and [having] red lines,” UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini said in an interview with Germany’s Der Spiegel news magazine.
“So far, 192 of our employees have been killed in Gaza. There have also been several arson attacks on our headquarters in East Jerusalem.”
Lazzarini pointed out that UNRWA workers have also been abused and tortured by Israel during their imprisonment.
“Released employees have reported to us that they faced mistreatment, humiliation and torture, including even waterboarding,” he said. “Many were almost naked, blindfolded and with cable tied up for long periods of time. What I had never heard before, that prisoners were forced to wear diapers for weeks because they couldn’t get access to sanitary facilities or just to humiliate them.”
Palestinians suffer water shortages, pollution in Jabalia refugee camp
