Rights group slams exclusion of Israel, Saudi-led coalition from UN’s children-in-conflict blacklist
Press TV – March 19, 2021
A group of child rights experts has strongly criticized the UN secretary-general for excluding eight parties, including the Israeli regime and the Saudi-led coalition, from a global blacklist of parties accountable for harming children during conflicts.
In a report, experts from Watchlist on Children, an international child rights group, said at least eight parties to conflicts were found responsible for killing and maiming more than 100 children in a single year but were excluded from the blacklist.
There were “numerous discrepancies and omissions in listing decisions, as well as unwarranted delisting decisions,” the report said, noting that the UN Security Council’s 2001 resolution establishing the list to protect children from the horrors of war “is being seriously undermined” and could result in “putting children at even greater risk.”
“The secretary-general’s 2015 annual report acknowledges that the number of children killed by Israel in 2014 was the third highest in the world and the number of schools damaged or destroyed was the highest anywhere in the world that year, and yet Israel has not been listed in the report’s annexes,” the report said.
It added that at the time the news media reported that Israel and the United States conducted intense lobbying to prevent the regime’s blacklisting.
The child rights experts also cited annual reports that have repeatedly found Israeli forces responsible for high levels of Palestinian child casualties, including over 1,525 killed and maimed in 2020 alone.
“Yet Israeli forces have yet to be included in the annexed list of violators,” they added.
According to the AP, co-author Yanghee Lee, former chair of the committee that monitors implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, said: “We are calling on the secretary-general to urgently address these problems and commit to hold all countries and groups responsible for violations against children accountable without fear or favor.”
In response to the report, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stands by the report’s conclusions, expressing willingness to engage with relevant partners in how to improve the system.
Benyam Dawit Mezmur, another co-author of the report urged the UN to ensure that the list of perpetrators it issues is “more credible, accurate, complete, and evidence-based, or risk pulling apart this unique tool for the protection of children caught in war.”
The report also said the Saudi-led war coalition against Yemen was delisted in 2020 for killing and maiming children in the Arab country, despite being responsible for a documented 222 child casualties during the reporting period.
“With this delisting, the Saudi-led coalition has been removed from the Secretary-General’s list altogether,” it noted.
Citing the Secretary-general’s reports that said the Saudi-led coalition was delisted due to a “sustained significant decrease” in the number of violations they committed, the rights experts said such argument runs counter to the established delisting criteria.
“This runs counter to the delisting criteria established in 2010 and the Security Council’s stated expectations that listing is based on whether or not grave violations against children took place in violation of international obligations,” they maintained.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the Saudi war on Yemen has killed a quarter of a million people, including women and children, since it was launched in March 2015 with the aim of restoring the Riyadh-friendly government of former President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi.
No comments yet.
Featured Video
Prof John Mearsheimer – Iran Hardliners Proven Right
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Not Fact Checkers
By Iain | In This Together | February 28, 2020
Fact Checkers claim they check facts for you, so you don’t have to. The dictionary definition of a fact is:
“Something that is known to have happened or to exist, especially something for which proof exists, or about which there is information”
The legal definition of a fact is:
“An actual and absolute reality, as distinguished from mere supposition or opinion; a truth, as distinguished from fiction or error.”
Like reality and truth, a fact is absolute. It never changes, it is immutable and eternal. Our understanding of the facts may differ because we only have the available evidence to inform our knowledge of the facts. The availability of evidence is vital if we are to have any hope of knowing the facts. Our access to evidence doesn’t change the facts, it merely limits or expands our knowledge of them.
The definition of knowledge is:
“[Noun]… awareness, understanding, or information that has been obtained by experience or study, and that is either in a person’s mind or possessed by people generally.”
Access to information is the key component for developing knowledge of the facts. Knowledge doesn’t mean we always get the facts right, but we have no chance if information is limited or deliberately restricted. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Prof John Mearsheimer – Iran Hardliners Proven Right
- British charities promoting Israeli army training programs, visits to illegal settlement
- Trump’s post-genocide Gaza plan collapses as international ‘peacekeeping’ force shrinks to a handful of troops
- Volkswagen’s planned defence deal with Israel blocked by Qatari investors
- Türkiye sells S-400 systems to undisclosed Gulf state
- US/Israeli equipment failing against new hypersonic tactic
- The U.S. controls who can participate in UN activities
- Denmark wants NATO to protect it from US
- NATO summit was ‘humiliating’ for Zelensky – Moscow
- RT producer speaks out after UK detention
- If Americans Knew
- Israel Continues to Shoot Children in the Head During the Gaza Ceasefire
- Israel announces theft of Palestinian land in West Bank to expand road for settlers
- What would you do to help end a genocide?
- Israel’s “ceasefire” in Gaza includes shooting children in the head – Daily Update
- Bombshell Graham Platner Report Has Big Problems
- These Palestinian families in the West Bank have barricaded themselves inside their homes to survive Israeli settler attacks
- How Israel and American Zionists are canceling First Amendment
- Israel is murdering Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya. The U.S. media is covering up the crime: 2 Articles
- Inside the growing religious revolt against Christian Zionism
- Abdul El-Sayed and Rep. Haley Stevens on the debate stage
- No Tricks Zone
- Fatal Snobbery: In France, It’s Better To Die From A Heatwave Than To Do As Americans
- New Study: NASA’s Models Wildly Underestimate The Capacity Of Clouds To Alter Solar Radiation
- Polar Freezeover: Western Arctic Early July Sea Ice Exceeds 1980s Average
- Doing The Opposite: Studies Show Gigantic Wind Farms Significantly Warm The Night
- 120 Years Of Shortwave And Longwave Flux Analysis Show Ocean Heat Changes Are Unrelated To CO2
- +25°C …It’s The Exploding Global Urbanisation, Stupid! Why Heat Waves Are Setting Records
- Heat And Drought In Germany Are Nothing New, Archive Media Show
- Lousy Station Siting: Swirling Controversy Surrorunds Germany’s Latest “New Alltime Record High” Temperature
- 2025 Study: Cloud Effects Reduce Downwelling Longwave Radiation, Overriding The CO2 Impact
- 3 New Studies Find Increasing Trends In Solar Radiation Since The 1980s – Easily Explaining Warming
Aletho News 
Leave a comment