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UN Adds Israel to Infamous ‘List of Shame’ Alongside Hamas, Prompting Outrage
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks at the UN headquarters in New York City, US, before a meeting about the conflict in Gaza, Nov. 6, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs
The United Nations on Friday announced that it has placed Israel, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad on its so-called “list of shame,” prompting outrage from Israeli officials who described the move as the latest effort by the international organization to damage the reputation of the Jewish state.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told senior officials on Friday that he has blacklisted Israel alongside other “countries that kill children” in armed conflict. The decision places the Jewish state alongside notorious human rights abusers such as Russia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Myanmar, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen. The list also includes Islamist terrorist groups such as Islamic State, al Qaeda, and Boko Haram.
Israel is considered to be the only democracy on the list, which is included in a report on children and armed conflict that Guterres is due to submit to the UN Security Council on June 14. Guterres’s office releases an annual report that documents alleged rights violations against children in armed conflict.
Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan received a call from Guterres’s office on Friday, informing him of the Jewish state’s inclusion on the upcoming edition of the infamous list, which the UN Security Council is set to discuss along with the broader report’s findings on June 26.
Erdan excoriated the decision by the UN as “outrageous and wrong,” adding that Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that rules Gaza, “has been using children for terrorism and uses schools and hospitals as military compounds.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement condemning the UN announcement and defending the conduct of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
“Today the UN added itself to the black list of history when it joined those who support the Hamas murderers,” the statement said. “The IDF is the most moral army in the world; no delusional UN decision will change that.”
Israeli officials have long accused the international body of having a bias against the Jewish state. Last year, the UN General Assembly condemned Israel twice as often as it did all other countries.
The latest UN announcement has potential consequences for Israel. The UN will put in place a “monitoring and reporting mechanism” (MRM) that will collaborate with Israeli officials to help secure children’s safety in war zones. The MRM will be tasked with producing reports detailing Israel’s progress in protecting Palestinian children to the UN Security Council.
A leaked draft of the report accuses Israel of killing around 8,000 Palestinian children over the course of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, citing data from the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry. Independent analyses have concluded that casualty figures from Gaza authorities systematically overcount the number of casualties while undercounting the number of men and Hamas terrorists who were killed.
The draft also accuses the Jewish state of indiscriminately dropping bombs in heavily populated areas in Gaza and obstructing humanitarian aid from reaching the war-torn enclave, both of which have disproportionately negative effects on children.
Pro-Israel supporters have lambasted the UN’s decision, noting that Hamas terrorists embed themselves within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeer civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations and direct attacks. Israeli officials maintain they go to extensive lengths to avoid civilian casualties while targeting Hamas, arguing collateral damage is unfortunate but inevitable given Hamas’ strategy of using civilian sites.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both internationally designated terrorist organizations, have for years openly run and promoted summer camps in Gaza where children undergo military training. Israel’s military has accused Hamas and Islamic Jihad of using child soldiers in their war against Israel, claiming it found documents, video footage and photographs of Palestinian children being exploited as fighters.
The UN announcement came on the same day that a new report by the Associated Press revealed that women and children are a shrinking portion of casualties in Gaza, indicating shifting military tactics by Israel. The report also cast doubt on claims that Israel has not attempted to protect children as it continues its military campaign against Hamas, which launched the war with its Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.
According to the AP, children accounted for 60 percent of civilian deaths during the beginning of the war in October, but that number shrank to 40 percent in April.
The decreasing share of children among casualties, according to the AP, “went unnoticed for months by the UN and much of the media, and the Hamas-linked Health Ministry has made no effort to set the record straight.”
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At Least 12 Killed in Massive Russian Attack on Ukraine
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks during a joint press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine June 10, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko
i24 News – Russia-Ukraine War: About three and a half years after the outbreak of the war, Russia carried out last night (Sunday) the largest air attack since it began. At least 12 people were killed, including three children, and dozens more were injured when 367 rockets and missiles were fired at Ukrainian cities, including the capital Kyiv.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sharply criticized US policy, which so far has taken a soft stance towards Russia, and recently hinted that it would stop mediating between the two countries: “The silence of America, the silence of others in the world only encourages Putin,” he wrote on Telegram. “Every such Russian terrorist attack is reason enough for new sanctions against Russia.”
The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russia launched 298 drones and 69 missiles in a night attack. According to him, they shot down 266 drones and 45 missiles. Damage was caused to several areas, including the second largest city in Ukraine, Kharkiv, as well as Mykolaiv in the south and Ternopil in the west.
In parallel, a prisoner of war exchange deal was concluded. In Russia, reports said that 303 prisoners were transferred from each side. In total, over the last three days 2,000 prisoners, 1,000 Ukrainians and 1,000 Russians, have been returned to their countries. Zelensky thanked the servicemen of the armed forces, and promised to bring all the prisoners home. “Today, our armed forces, the national guard, the state border service, and the special state transport service are returning home.”
“I am grateful to the team that worked around the clock to successfully execute these exchanges,” he added. “We will certainly bring back each and every one of our people from Russian captivity.”
Meanwhile, The Washington Post reported that the Russian army may reach a severe shortage of manpower and weapons in the next year. The Ukrainian army is also in trouble, and it is offering generous economic grants to new recruits.
The post At Least 12 Killed in Massive Russian Attack on Ukraine first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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UN Says More Food Needed in Gaza as Looting Hampers Deliveries
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres speaks to members of the Security Council during a meeting to address the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question, at UN headquarters in New York City, New York, US, April 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
Israeli airstrikes killed at least six Palestinians guarding aid trucks against looters, Hamas officials said on Friday, as the head of the United Nations warned that only a “teaspoon” of aid was getting in following Israel’s 11-week-long blockade.
The Israeli military said 107 trucks carrying flour and other foodstuffs as well as medical supplies entered the Gaza Strip from the Kerem Shalom crossing point on Thursday, for a total of 305 since Monday when the blockade was relaxed.
But getting the supplies to people sheltering in tents and other makeshift accommodation has been fitful and U.N. officials say at least 500 to 600 trucks of aid are needed every day.
So far, an umbrella network of Palestinian aid groups said, 119 aid trucks have got past the Kerem Shalom crossing point and into Gaza since Israel eased its blockade on Monday in the face of an international outcry.
Despite the relaxation of the blockade, distribution has been hampered by looting by groups of men, some of them armed, near the city of Khan Younis, an umbrella network representing Palestinian aid groups said.
“They stole food meant for children and families suffering from severe hunger,” the network said in a statement, which also condemned Israeli airstrikes on security teams protecting the trucks.
The U.N. World Food Program said 15 trucks carrying flour to WFP-supported bakeries had been looted, which it said reflected the dire conditions facing Gazans.
“Hunger, desperation and anxiety over whether more food aid is coming is contributing to rising insecurity,” it said in a statement.
A Hamas official said six members of a security team tasked with guarding the shipments were killed.
Israel imposed the blockade in early March, accusing Hamas of stealing aid meant for civilians. Hamas rejects the charge, saying a number of its own fighters have been killed protecting the trucks from armed looters.
“Hamas constantly calls the looters ‘guards’ or protectors’ to mask the fact that they’re disturbing the aid process,” an Israeli military official said.
‘DESPERATION’
With most of Gaza’s 2 million population squeezed into an ever narrowing zone on the coast and in the area around the southern city of Khan Younis by Israel’s military operation, international pressure to get aid in quickly has ratcheted up.
“Without rapid, reliable, safe and sustained aid access, more people will die – and the long-term consequences on the entire population will be profound,” said U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
A German government spokesperson said the aid was “far too little, too late and too slow,” adding that delivery of supplies had to be increased significantly.
Israel has announced that a new system, sponsored by the United States and run by private contractors, will soon begin operations from four distribution centers in the south of Gaza, but many details of how the system will work remain unclear.
The U.N. has already said it will not work with the new system, which it says will leave aid distribution conditional on Israel’s political and military aims.
Israel says its forces will only provide security for the centers and will not distribute aid themselves.
As the aid has begun to trickle in, the Israeli military has continued the intensified ground and air operation launched last week, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said would end with Israel taking full control of the Gaza Strip.
The military said it had conducted more strikes in Gaza overnight, hitting 75 targets, including weapons storage facilities and rocket launchers.
The post UN Says More Food Needed in Gaza as Looting Hampers Deliveries first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Swiss Authorities Exploring Probe Into US-Backed Gaza Aid Group
Displaced Palestinian children wait to receive free food at a tent camp, amid food shortages, as the conflict between Israel and Hamas continues, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, February 27, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
Swiss authorities said on Sunday they were exploring whether to open a legal investigation into the activities of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US-backed organization that plans to oversee aid distribution in the Palestinian enclave.
The move comes after a Swiss NGO submitted a request for a probe into GHF’s aid plan, which the United Nations has opposed, saying it is not impartial or neutral and forces further displacement and exposes thousands of people to harm.
The GHF, which has said it hopes to start work in Gaza by the end of May, told Reuters it “strictly adheres” to humanitarian principles, and that it would not support any form of forced relocation of civilians.
Israel has allowed limited aid deliveries to resume this week after having stopped all aid deliveries to Gaza on March 2.
TRIAL International, a Switzerland-based NGO, on Friday said it had filed two legal submissions asking Swiss authorities to investigate whether the Swiss-registered GHF complies with Swiss law and international humanitarian law.
The submissions were made to the Swiss Federal Supervisory Authority for Foundations and the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) on May 20 and 21.
The FDFA on Sunday confirmed to Reuters that both authorities had received the submissions.
TRIAL International said it asked the Swiss FDFA to explain if the GHF had submitted a declaration, in accordance with Swiss law, to use private security companies to distribute aid, and if it had been approved by Swiss authorities.
The FDFA told Reuters it is investigating whether such a declaration would be required for the foundation.
It said that the Federal Supervisory Board for Foundations cannot review whether foundations comply with their statutes until they start their activities.
The GHF told Reuters that though using private security firms represents a change from prior aid delivery frameworks, it would ensure aid is not diverted to Hamas or criminal organizations.
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