Israel hit by UN for killing children
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The highest number of Palestinian children had been killed or injured last year since 2014, mainly by Israeli forces, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a report to the Security Council on Friday.
Guterres also reported that a Saudi Arabia-led military coalition fighting in Yemen killed or injured 729 children during 2018, accounting for nearly half the total child casualties. The annual Children in Armed Conflict report blacklisted the coalition for a third year.
The report, which does not subject those listed to action but rather shames parties to conflicts in the hope of pushing them to implement measures to protect children, has long been controversial with diplomats saying Saudi Arabia and Israel both exerted pressure in recent years in a bid to stay off the list.
The Israeli UN mission did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the latest report. In 2015 the United Nations left Israel and Hamas off the blacklist, after they had been included in an earlier draft, but criticized Israel over its 2014 military operations. Israel denied lobbying then secretary-general Ban Ki-moon on the issue.
Last year, the report verified that 59 Palestinian children had been killed – 56 by Israeli forces – and another 2,756 injured, while six Israeli children were wounded. The report found Israeli forces injured some 2,674 children “in the context of demonstrations, clashes and search and arrest operations.”
Guterres urged “Israel to immediately put in place preventive and protective measures to end the excessive use of force” and “all Palestinian actors to refrain from encouraging children’s participation in violence.”
The annual children and armed conflict report is produced at the request of the UN Security Council.
The increase in the amount is likely due to the thousands of Gazans who protest along the security fence on a weekly basis, taking part in “Great Return March” demonstrations, which began on March 30, calling for an end of the 12-year-long Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.
During the violent protests, Gazans have been burning tires and hurling stones as well as
grenades and other explosive devices toward IDF troops. They have also launched countless aerial incendiary devices into the South, devastating thousands of hectares of land.
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza says that close to 300 Palestinians have been killed and over 22,000 others injured since the march began.
According to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, there have been 29,187 Palestinians injured as of March, with 7,246 injured by live ammunition and 773 injured by rubber bullets.
Another 12,442 Palestinians were injured by gas inhalation and 8,449 by other means. OCHA documentation also
found that the large majority of those injured were adult men, 21,433, followed by 5,333 male youths, 1,699 women and 445 girls.
Saudi UN Ambassador Abdallah Al-Mouallimi said the report acknowledges steps taken by the coalition to safeguard children, noting that “every child’s life is precious.” But he also questioned the sourcing and accuracy of the report, describing the numbers as “exaggerated.”
The coalition had been briefly added to the blacklist in 2016 and then removed by Ban pending review. At the time, Ban accused Saudi Arabia of exerting “unacceptable” undue pressure after sources told Reuters that Riyadh threatened to cut
some UN funding. Saudi Arabia denied threatening Ban.
In an effort to dampen controversy surrounding the report, the blacklist released in 2017 by Guterres was split into two categories. One lists parties that have put in place measures to protect children and the other includes parties that have not.
The blacklist submitted to the Security Council on Friday named the Saudi-led military coalition and Yemen government forces on the first list, and the Iran-allied Houthi rebel group, pro-Yemen government militia, the Security Belt Forces and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula on the second list.
The UN report said the Houthis killed and injured 398 children and Yemeni government forces were responsible for 58 child casualties.
“I condemn the increasing number of child casualties, which are often a result of
attacks in densely populated areas and against civilian objects, including schools and hospitals,” Guterres said in the report, produced by UN Children and Armed Conflict envoy Virginia Gamba and issued in Guterres’s name.
“The rise in the number of child casualties attributed to the Government Forces and the Coalition and the persistent killing and maiming of children by the Popular Resistance are increasingly worrying,” the report said.
“In Afghanistan, the number of child casualties remained the highest such number in the present report (3,062) and children accounted for 28% of all civilian casualties. In the Syrian Arab Republic, air strikes, barrel bombs and cluster munitions resulted in 1,854 child casualties,” the report said.
Anna Ahronheim contributed to this report.