Some UN Security Council members clashed over a UN report on children in armed conflict, with the US defending Israel, while other members condemned Israeli atrocities against Palestinian children.
Colombia’s UN envoy, Leonor Zalabata Torres, who chairs the Council this month, said on Wednesday the report points to “state forces” as being responsible for “the greatest number of grave violations registered during the last year”, singling out Gaza as “the place in the world with the highest number of registered grave violations, most of them attributed” to Israeli forces.
She said independent investigations have documented “an alarming pattern of deliberate attacks by the IDF (Israeli military) against children”, and asked: “What cause or what kind of security excuse could possibly justify shooting in cold blood, a child or a baby just a few months old?”
Torres said evidence points to “the same kind of systematic narrative of dehumanisation that, instead of seeing a child, imagines a future enemy”, as she urged the Council to “recognise the genocidal intention of the government of Israel”.
Pakistan’s deputy UN envoy, Usman Jadoon, said it is “appalling that more than 12,000 incidents of grave violations occurred only in one year against children in the occupied Palestinian territory”, warning that the psychological trauma and physical atrocities endured by children in situations of foreign occupation are “extremely alarming”.
Somalia’s deputy envoy, Mohamed Rabi Yusuf, said the report “lays bare an unfortunate truth”, noting that “children are being killed, maimed, and denied their most basic rights” across conflicts, with their futures “buried beneath rubble, both real and symbolic”.
