Ban leaves Israel off child rights violators list
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has left the Israeli regime off the latest annual UN list of parties that kill or injure children during armed conflicts.
Ban's spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, told reporters that the report circulated Monday was the "result of a consultative process" and in the end was the UN chief’s decision.
"Obviously, it was a difficult decision to take," he commented.
"The UN secretary-general was right not to submit to the dictates of the terrorist organizations and the Arab states in his decision not to include Israel in this shameful list, together with organizations like ISIL, al-Qaeda and the Taliban," Israel's ambassador to the UN, Ron Prosor, said in a statement.
The UN’s latest annual “List of Shame” of children's rights violators comes as Human Rights Watch (HRW) had called on the world body to put Israel on the register.
The rights group urged Ban on June 4 to resist pressure from Israel and the United States to keep the Israeli military force off the list.
“Secretary-General Ban can strengthen child protection in war by compiling his list based on facts, not political pressure,” Philippe Bolopion, the crisis advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, had said.
Israel waged war on the Gaza Strip in early July last year. The offensive ended on August 26, 2014 with a truce that took effect after indirect negotiations in the Egyptian capital, Cairo. Nearly 2,200 Palestinians, including 577 children, were killed in Israel’s 50-day onslaught. Over 11,100 others - including 3,374 children, 2,088 women and 410 elderly people - were also injured.
Meanwhile, a recent report says a total of 93 Palestinian children are currently imprisoned in the Israeli Ofer prison, eight of whom are serving various jail terms while the rest are yet to be sentenced.
The Palestinian Authority’s Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs (CPA) said in a Sunday report that almost 28 of the children in the Ofer prison, which is near the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, suffer from different illnesses.
According to the report, a total of 161 Palestinians under the age of 18 were detained by Israeli troops from the beginning of the current year until the end of May.
Many of those arrested have reported flagrant rights violations against them by Israeli soldiers.
More than 7,000 Palestinians, many of them without charge or trial, are reportedly imprisoned in 17 Israeli jails and detention centers.
MP/NN/HMV
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