Today, Friday, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres informed the Israeli mission to the United Nations that Israel has been included in the “blacklist of countries that kill children.”
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, said that he received official notification from Guterres that the Israeli army was included on a global blacklist of perpetrators of violations against children, describing the decision as “shameful.”
Erdan added that the one who entered the “blacklist” today is the Secretary-General of the United Nations, who encourages terrorism.
In turn, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that the United Nations placed itself in the blacklist of history when it joined the supporters of what he described as killers from the Hamas movement.
He added, “The Israeli army is the most moral army in the world, and any ridiculous United Nations resolution will not change this reality.”
In turn, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz confirmed that the decision to include Israel on the blacklist will affect Israel’s relations with the United Nations.
Negative repercussions
For its part, the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth revealed that all Israeli efforts to persuade Guterres to refrain from this step have failed, stressing that Israel will appear on a blacklist, which will be published next week as part of a report distributed to members of the Security Council.
She continued, “Although an official statement by the Secretary-General of the United Nations has not yet been published, Israel understands that the decision has been taken, and the report will be discussed on June 26.”
The newspaper indicated that the move will have many negative repercussions, because it will encourage calls to boycott and delegitimize Israel, and will also harm trade and the arms embargo.
She added that the Israeli Foreign Ministry began examining possible means of responding to the decision to include Israel on the blacklist.
Children’s cemetery
On several occasions, the Secretary-General of the United Nations called for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, warning that the Strip was turning into a “cemetery for children.”
In turn, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said that more than 13,000 children were killed and thousands more were injured during the Israeli war on Gaza.
The organization’s executive director, Katherine Russell, told CBS News that this rate of deaths among children has never been recorded in almost any other conflict in the world.
She added that many children suffer from severe anemia and malnutrition and do not have “even the energy to cry,” noting that there are what she called very significant bureaucratic challenges before aid trucks enter Gaza.
The Israeli war on Gaza resulted in more than 120,000 Palestinian martyrs and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 10,000 missing people, amid massive destruction and famine that claimed the lives of children and the elderly.