UN to add Israel to ‘blacklist’ over conduct during war in Gaza

The UN secretary-general will say Israel and Hamas are waging a war that violates children’s rights and put the country on the UN’s “blacklist” in a report to the Security Council.

Spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters on Friday that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ chief of staff had told Israeli U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan in a phone call that Israel would be included in the report to be presented to the Security Council next week.

Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are also set to be on the list. According to an Associated Press report.

Israel was reportedly outraged by the UN’s decision, with Erdan sending a video to media outlets in which he slammed Secretary-General Guterres during the phone call. Erdan also issued a statement after the announcement.

“Hamas will continue to use our schools and hospitals because this shameful decision of the secretary-general only gives Hamas hope to survive, to prolong the war and to prolong the suffering,” Erdan said. “Shame on you!”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also reacted to the news. In X’s post“Today the United Nations has placed itself on history’s blacklist,” he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a ceremony to commemorate Israel’s fallen soldiers in wars and victims of attacks at the Mount Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem, May 13, 2024. (Gil Cohen Magen/Pool Photo via The Associated Press)

Meanwhile, Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour said adding Israel to the list was “an important step in the right direction”, but Statement to AP The decision “will never bring back tens of thousands of children killed by Israel over decades.”

on the other hand, A statement conveyed to Al JazeeraRiad Malki, a senior Palestinian official, said the step came too late.

“In the face of the tragedy in Gaza that the world is witnessing with its own eyes, especially the massacres targeting children and women, the UN secretary-general no longer has any excuse not to blacklist Israel,” Malki said.

Israel has faced strong international criticism over the high number of civilian deaths in its eight-month war with Hamas, raising questions about whether it is doing enough to prevent them.

At least 40 people were killed and 74 wounded in an Israeli airstrike on a school in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, according to the United Nations, Hamas and Palestinian authorities.

Israel defended the attack, but the Hamas-led Palestinian Health Ministry said in a Facebook post that 14 children and nine women were killed in the attack, while Israel claimed it was a “precision strike on a Hamas compound” inside the school.

More than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began, and despite continuing pressure to end its campaign to destroy Hamas, Israel has continued its military operation, refocusing it on the central and southern Gaza Strip.

The UN’s decision to include Israel in the report came ahead of Netanyahu’s planned address to a joint session of parliament on July 24. The parliament’s four biggest leaders had invited him to speak, and leading Republicans announced the planned speech on Thursday.

Progressive Democrats have voiced strong opposition to the decision to invite Netanyahu, with some already vowing to skip the speech. The very idea of ​​the invitation has infuriated progressives, including Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), who argued that Netanyahu “seems bent on eradicating the people of Gaza.”