Israel Isn’t on UN List of Parties That Kill or Injure Kids

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s latest annual list of parties that kill or injure children in armed conflict does not include Israel — as some U.N. officials had recommended.

But the U.N. chief makes clear in the report circulated Monday that the number of Palestinian children killed and injured in Gaza and the West Bank last year, in the thousands, is unacceptable.

U.N. officials said the U.N. special envoy for children in armed conflict, Leila Zerrougui, had recommended that both Israel and Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, be placed on the report’s list of parties that recruit, use, kill, maim or commit acts of sexual violence against children. But the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the recommendation was not public, said there were differences of opinion among those on the ground on whether Israel should be listed.

The report, covering 2014, includes Israel and the state of Palestine in a section on “grave violations committed against children during armed conflict.” It cites a significant deterioration in the security situation in the Palestinian territories, with escalating hostilities in Gaza and a significant increase in tensions in the West Bank, “with devastating impacts for children.”

In Gaza, at least 561 children — 557 Palestinians and 4 Israelis — were killed, and 4,271 were injured, all but 22 of them Palestinians, the report said. In the West Bank, 13 Palestinian boys and three Israeli youths were killed and 1,218 children were injured, it said.

The secretary-general urges Israel “to take concrete and immediate steps, including by reviewing existing policies and practices, to protect children, to prevent the killing and maiming of children, and to respect the special protections afforded to schools and hospitals.”

He also urged Israel to ensure accountability for perpetrators of alleged violations.

Israel maintains that its actions in Gaza were in response to rocket attacks on southern Israel, and were never aimed at children.

“The U.N. secretary-general was right not to submit to the dictates of the terrorist organizations and the Arab states in his decision not to include Israel in this shameful list, together with organizations like ISIS, al-Qaeda and the Taliban,” Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., Ron Prosor, said in a statement. “However, the UN still has a long way to go. Instead of releasing thousands of reports and lists against Israel, the U.N. must unequivocally condemn the terrorist organizations that operate in the Gaza Strip.”

Ban’s spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, told reporters that the list was the “result of a consultative process” and in the end was Ban’s decision. “Obviously, it was a difficult decision to take,” Dujarric said, adding that U.N. member states “have never been shy” about expressing their opinions to Ban about who should or should not be included.

Without naming any country, Ban called into question those parties to conflict that say targeting children was never a policy or practice “but merely the unintended consequence of military action.”

“I would like to put all parties to conflict on notice that those that engage in military action that results in numerous grave violations against children will, regardless of intent, find themselves under continued scrutiny by the United Nations, including in future reports relating to children and armed conflict,” he said.