Israeli military ‘named and shamed’ for second year on UN report into child violations
This is the 24th year that the United Nations has released this report on grave violations against children.
The report, released annually, looks at the number of children globally who have been killed, maimed or recruited into armed conflict, among other things. The report only documents cases that the UN has been able to independently verify.
Now, despite ample evidence that Israel should have been included on this list for many years, it wasn’t – as the UN bowed to Israeli pressure not to be named in the report. But that all changed last year when Israel was included for the first time. And now this year, marking two years in a row that Israel is named and shamed.
In the annexe of the report looking at 2024, it says Israeli forces remained on the list because they fulfilled the criteria of a “party that kills and maims children” and “a party that engages in attacks on schools and/or hospitals”.
Globally, the UN was able to verify 41,370 grave violations against children in 2024. Roughly 20 percent of the total – more than 8,000 – were committed by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory.
I guess that doesn't take into account deliberately starving nearly a million children in Gaza...
‘Children will begin to die of thirst’: Gaza facing man-made drought
The besieged Gaza Strip, which has been under Israeli attacks since October 2023, is facing a man-made drought as its water systems collapse, the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, has warned.
“Children will begin to die of thirst,” spokesperson James Elder told reporters in Geneva. “Just 40 percent of drinking water production facilities remain functional,” he said.
Rights groups, unions call on EU to scrap trade agreement with Israel over abuses
More than 100 organisations, including human rights groups and trade unions, have called on the European Union to immediately suspend its trade agreement with Israel over its abuses towards Palestinians.
EU foreign ministers are expected to discuss their trade cooperation deal with Israel, the EU-Israel Association Agreement, on Monday, when they are due to get an assessment of Israel’s compliance with Article 2 of the agreement.
The article states that “respect for human rights and democratic principles” in “internal and international policy” is an essential element of the deal. EU foreign ministers voted to initiate a review of the deal last month.
“As parties to the Genocide Convention, all EU states are bound to ‘employ all reasonable means’ to stop Israeli atrocities, but instead, many EU states have stood by, quiet and at risk of complicity,” said Claudio Francavilla, acting EU director at Human Rights Watch.
The human rights group is one of 114 organisations that signed the joint statement, along with Amnesty International and Oxfam Ireland.
“EU foreign ministers shouldn’t let the escalating hostilities between Israel and Iran take focus away from the ongoing extermination and apartheid against the Palestinians,” he said, adding that the EU “should suspend the trade pillar of the EU-Israel Association Agreement without further delay”.
