UN adds Israel to ‘list of shame’ for alleged violations against children; Israel PM calls its ‘delusional’

TEL AVIV: The United Nations has added Israel and Hamas to their ‘list of shame’, documenting rights violations against children in armed conflict, reported The Times of Israel. The list has been attached to an annual report submitted by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s office.

Notably, for the first time, Israel and Hamas have been included on this list, joining the ranks of Russia, the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, Afghanistan, Iraq, Myanmar, Somalia, Yemen and Syria. This further means that Israel is believed to be the first democratic country included on the list, as reported by The Times of Israel.

Previous reports included chapters on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which accused Israel of grave rights violations against children. However, in the past, Israel was never included in the annexe at the end of the report of “listed parties that have not put in place measures during the reporting period to improve the protection of children.” This annexe is what has become known as the “list of shame.”

Following the UN’s report, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the UN’s decision “delusional”. “The UN has put itself on the blacklist of history today when it joined the supporters of the Hamas murderers. The IDF is the most moral army in the world and no delusional decision by the UN will change that”, the Israeli PM said.

The UN put itself today on history’s black list 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.

— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) June 7, 2024

The Israeli Mission to the UN filmed Israel’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Gilad Erdan receiving the formal notification on Friday from Guterres’s chief of staff. Gilad Erdan emphasised that Israel’s army is the most moral army in the world, adding that this “immoral decision” will only aid the terrorists and “reward Hamas”.

“The only one who is blacklisted today is the secretary-general whose decisions since the war started and even before are rewarding terrorists, incentivizing them to use children for terror acts,” he said, according to The Times of Israel. “Now Hamas will continue even more to use schools and hospitals because this shameful decision of the secretary-general will only give Hamas hope to survive and will only extend the war, and extend the suffering. Shame on him”, Erdan added.

Roughly 8,000 children have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, The Times of Israel reported. The figure, however, has not been independently verified and dropped overnight by roughly 6,500 last month, which led to further questions regarding the veracity of the data received from Hamas authorities, which was also used in the UN report on children and armed conflict, according to The Times of Israel.

Furthermore, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said that the decision “will have consequences for Israel’s relations with the UN.” “The shameful decision by the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to include the IDF in the blacklist is an act of villainy”, Katz said in a post on X.

“Guterres, who stood for a minute of silence in memory of Iran’s president who executed tens of thousands of innocents, will be remembered in history as an antisemitic secretary-general who chose to ignore Hamas’s sexual crimes and Israel’s right to self-defence”, he said.

The Israeli Foreign Minister emphasised that the step by the UN will impact Israel’s relations with the UN. “The IDF 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”, he said. (ANI)