UN committee says Israel violated global child rights treaty in Gaza

A UN committee accuses Israel of severe breaches of a global treaty protecting children’s rights, saying its military actions in Gaza had a catastrophic impact on them and are among the worst violations in recent history.

Hamas-run health authorities say 41,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its military campaign. These figures cannot be verified and do not differentiate between combatants and civilians. Israel says it has killed more than 17,000 terror operatives.

Israel launched the war in response to Hamas’s Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel in which terrorists killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.

Hamas figures claim that of those killed in Gaza, at least 11,355 are children, and thousands more are injured.

“The outrageous death of children is almost historically unique. This is an extremely dark place in history,” Bragi Gudbrandsson, vice chair of the Committee, tells reporters.

“I don’t think we have seen before a violation that is so massive as we’ve seen in Gaza. These are extremely grave violations that we do not often see,” he says.

Israel, which ratified the treaty in 1991, sent a large delegation to the UN hearings in Geneva on September 3-4.

They argued that the treaty did not apply in Gaza or the West Bank and said that Israel was committed to respecting international humanitarian law.

Israel says its military campaign in Gaza is aimed at eliminating the Palestinian enclave’s Hamas rulers and that it does not target civilians but that the terrorists are deeply embedded among them, operating in tunnels under residential area, and from within hospitals and schools.

The Committee praised Israel for attending but says it “deeply regrets the State party’s repeated denial of its legal obligations.”

The 18-member UN Committee monitors countries’ compliance with the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child — a widely adopted treaty that protects children from violence and other abuses.

In its conclusions, it called on Israel to provide urgent assistance to thousands of children maimed or injured by the war, provide support for orphans, and allow more medical evacuations from Gaza.