Israel says UN has added it to list of offenders who have committed violations against children

United Nations secretary general Antonio Guterres has added Israel’s military to a global list of offenders who have committed violations against children, according to Israel’s UN envoy Gilad Erdan, who described the decision as “shameful”.

Mr Erdan said he was officially notified of the decision on Friday. The global list is included in a report on children and armed conflict that is due to be submitted to the UN Security Council on June 14th.

Mr Erdan said he was notified by Mr Guterres’s chief of staff and posted a video on social media of himself responding to the decision during their phone call. “I am utterly shocked and disgusted by this shameful decision of the secretary general,” said Mr Erdan. “Israel’s army is the most moral army in the world, so this immoral decision will only aid the terrorists and reward Hamas.”

Mr Guterres’s spokesperson Stephane Dujarric declined to comment.

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Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said in a statement that the UN had “added itself to the black list of history when it joined those who support the Hamas murderers”.

Mr Guterres’s annual report to the 15-member Security Council on children and armed conflict covers killing, maiming, sexual abuse, abduction or recruitment of children, denial of access to aid and targeting of schools and hospitals.

It was not immediately clear what violations Israel’s military had been accused of committing.

Meanwhile, Israeli troops advanced westwards into neighbourhoods in Rafah on Friday after seizing full control over the Philadelphi route, along the entire Gaza-Egypt border.

[ Dozens reported killed in Israeli strike on UN school in Gaza ]

Heavy fighting was also reported close to the Bureij refugee camp and in Dir el-Balah in central Gaza.

In Khan Younis, an Israeli air strike on a house killed eight people and wounded several, including children, medics said.

The Israeli air force on Friday attacked a container on the grounds of an Unrwa school in Gaza city’s Shati camp, killing a number of gunmen, according to the military.

Rescue workers said the school was sheltering displaced families. Israel claims the container was being used by Hamas, and said steps had been taken to minimise civilian casualties.

Earlier this week, at least 35 people were killed when Israeli forces attacked an Unrwa school building in Nusseirat in central Gaza. Israel claims the building was also used by Hamas as a command centre and named nine gunmen who were killed, but local health officials said at least 14 of those killed were children.

[ Living in Tel Aviv, I struggle to understand the apparent indifference of many Israelis to the carnage in Gaza ]

According to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, more than 36,500 Palestinians have been killed since the war began on October 7th. Israel says 1,200 people were killed and 253 hostages seized in the surprise Hamas attack that day. It says 124 hostages remain unaccounted for, but it is not known how many are alive.

The US has re-established a temporary pier in Gaza which will allow delivery of humanitarian aid to the enclave in the coming days. Washington suspended aid deliveries last week after the pier was damaged by bad weather less than two weeks after the $320 million facility was assembled.

A week after US president Joe Biden unveiled Israel’s latest ceasefire and hostage release offer, Israel is still waiting for Hamas’s official response, but the indications are the group will reject the plan in the absence of guarantees for an end to the war.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken will travel to the Middle East next week for what will be his eighth visit to the region since October 7th.

The leader of Israel’s centrist National Unity party, Benny Gantz, will give a news conference on Saturday night, coinciding with the expiration of the deadline he set for Mr Netanyahu for his resignation from the government. Mr Gantz last month presented Mr Netanyahu with an ultimatum to come up with a postwar plan for Gaza and to make progress on a hostage release deal, or his faction would resign from the emergency government set up in October after the Hamas attack.

Israel’s attorney general Gali Baharav-Miara has written a letter to Mr Netanyahu calling for a state commission of inquiry into the war in Gaza to address “current international legal risks”, warning that evading a proper inquiry may result in “significant harm” to Israel’s “national interests”. – Additional reporting: Reuters

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