The United Nations has added the Israeli military to its annual list of parties that violated the rights of children during armed conflicts in the previous year. Israel’s ambassador to the UN condemned this decision as “shameful”, while Palestinian officials view it as a step towards accountability for Israel’s actions.
The listing relates to the killing of children and obstruction of humanitarian aid access during Israel’s military offensive against Hamas in Gaza that began in October 2022. Thousands of Palestinian children have been killed, and many more are in desperate need of assistance.
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Israel defended its military as the “most moral army in the world”, while Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad were also included on the UN’s list of violators. There are vastly different claims about the number of Palestinian civilian casualties, with the UN revising down its earlier estimates based on data from Hamas authorities in Gaza.
The situation in Gaza remains dire, with reports of Israeli airstrikes killing dozens of displaced civilians taking shelter in schools. Aid groups describe chaos at hospitals overwhelmed with casualties, many of them women and children. There are warnings of famine-like conditions and over a million Palestinians displaced by the fighting in southern Gaza.
