Palestinian children after a strike in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, in July.Credit...Jehad Alshrafi/Associated Press
U.N. child rights experts on Thursday condemned the “catastrophic consequences” of Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip, which they said violated international law.
The experts, who make up the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, issued their findings after a review of Israel’s compliance with international standards for the protection of children, as outlined by the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
During the review, legal experts representing the Israeli government argued that Palestinian armed groups were to blame for civilian deaths in Gaza, including those of children. Israel has long said that Hamas militants embed themselves among civilians, using innocent people as human shields.
But the U.N. committee said those factors were not enough to justify Israel’s conduct.
“They were not, in our view, facing up to the reality that 17,000 children are dead and that there have been repeated attacks on schools and hospitals,” Anne Skelton, chairwoman of the U.N. committee, told journalists in Geneva, noting that “children are always civilians.”
Gazan health authorities have reported that children have made up some 40 percent of the more than 40,000 people killed in the war since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel.
From the NY Times of 9/19/24 by Nick Cumming-Bruce (reporting from Geneva)