The UN on Monday removed both the IDF and Hamas from a finalized list of children’s rights violators, despite calls for their inclusion after the summer 2014 war in Gaza that left hundreds of Palestinian children dead, reported AFP.
UN special envoy for children and armed conflict Leila Zerrougui had included both the IDF and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in the list, part of a report she submitted last month to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, according to the Jerusalem Post.
Ban’s office has final authority to publish and edit the report.
New York-based watchdog Human Rights Watch had called on Ban to resist mounting pressures from Israel and the US to remove the IDF and Hamas from the list.
Ban on Monday removed both the IDF and Hamas, but said that Israel had indeed used excessive force in last summer’s war in the Gaza Strip. The Jerusalem Post reported UN officials as saying that the secretary-general’s edit of Zerrougui’s list is unusual.
Israeli ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor praised his country’s exclusion from the blacklist, saying Ban was right “in his decision not to include Israel in this shameful list, together with organizations like ISIS [Daesh], al-Qaeda, and the Taliban,” reported AFP.
Last year’s conflict in Gaza, which lasted nearly two months, killed over five hundred Palestinian children and wounded almost 3,000. Many now suffer disabilities and severe emotional trauma, according to UNICEF, the UN children’s agency.
Six Israeli civilians were killed in the conflict.
The blacklist names 51 groups including Daesh, Boko Haram, and the armed forces of Yemen, Syria, South Sudan, and other countries.
