A draft of the UN’s Children and Armed Conflict report for 2023 accused Israel of recruiting minors as human shields and combatants.
A draft of the report on incidents in 2022 includes the new accusation, which the Israeli Embassy to the UN called “strange,” in its official rebuttal to the report. A final draft of the report is expected to be published in late June or early July.
The UN claimed that Israel recruited three Palestinian minors.
“These claims are not supported by any evidence that could be examined by the Israeli authorities,” the Israeli embassy wrote. “According to our findings, this lack of evidence is due to the fact that no such cases took place in 2022 and that the claims are false. Israel expects to see these baseless claims removed from the final report.”
Israel works to not be blacklisted in upcoming UN report
Israel has been working to ensure it is not blacklisted in the upcoming report, with ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan and the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) Maj.-Gen. Ghassan Alian meeting with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last week to submit the results of its examination of the UN’s allegations.
Israel asked that its comments be reflected in a later draft of the report.
Another UN claim that Israel said is unfounded is the allegation that a Palestinian minor was abducted by settlers. The UN report provided few details of the incident, even after Israel asked for more information, and the IDF and police have no record of it taking place.
“We believe that a case with such extreme and unusual allegations merits a serious and thorough verification before being included in the report, thus the [government of Israel] expects the mentioning of this unverified [incident] should be removed,” the embassy stated.
The UN draft report accuses Israel of killing and wounding Palestinian minors, but it does not refer to the context in which it took place – such as teenagers killed while or immediately after committing terrorist attacks – nor does it refer to ways in which Palestinians contribute to the situation – such as terrorist groups using children as human shields or launching attacks from civilian areas.
“Regrettably, the draft report does not reflect the efforts made by Israel to ensure the protection of children in the context of the conflict,” the embassy stated.
In one case, the UN claimed that a 22-year-old Israeli Arab was a Palestinian minor and that Israel killed him, when in fact, he died from accidentally self-inflicted wounds. Muhammad Walid attacked a bus carrying Israeli forces and was injured by flammable materials in his own vehicle, dying the next month.
The number of Palestinian children the UN alleged Israel killed dropped from 86 in 2021 to 32 in 2022. Israel said that 90% (29 of 32) of the minors the UN said were killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank “were involved at the time in terror attacks or violent clashes with Israeli security forces,” providing details of the incidents, often including notices from terrorist groups like Hamas claiming the teens as members. This occurred in a year in which there was a 55% increase in Israeli fatalities from terrorist attacks, which is not mentioned in the report, while the number of injured Palestinian minors dropped 53% in that time.
While 23 Israeli minors were injured in attacks by Palestinians in 2022, only seven were mentioned in the report; the Israeli response detailed all of the incidents. The UN report included the killing of 16-year-old Aryeh Shechopek at a Jerusalem bus stop but skipped the abduction and murder of 17-year-old Tiran Fero, who was hospitalized in Jenin following a car crash. Palestinian terrorists disconnected Fero from life support and kidnapped him; he died in captivity and his body was returned following heavy international pressure.
Also left unmentioned are over 1,000 rockets that Palestinian Islamic Jihad launched from Gaza into Israeli population centers last year and their impact on Israeli minors.
“Errant PIJ rockets that misfired inside Gaza were responsible for the death of most of the Palestinian minors killed,” the embassy noted. “The remaining 8 minors allegedly killed by Israeli airstrikes are a direct result of the Palestinian use of minors as human shields…The IDF struck only military targets belonging to PIJ in the Gaza Strip, such as rocket depots, weapons stockpiles, production facilities, and underground tunnels used for military purposes; all to prevent the ongoing rocket fire on Israeli civilians, including minors. Unfortunately, many of these targets were embedded in the heart of densely populated civilian areas.”
The UN also failed to report Hamas and PIJ’s use of schools and hospitals as bases for terror attacks and the digging of tunnels for terrorists’ use under those civilian sites, in violation of international law.
While mentioning PIJ, the report overlooks Hamas and its recruitment of minors, Israel lamented, pointing out that Guterres warned Hamas on this topic in 2021. In addition, it does not include Hamas or the Palestinian Authority’s incitement of children to confront Israeli soldiers in its textbooks, summer camps, and media channels.
Israel also said the number of Palestinian minors detained in 2022 was 791, not 852, and rejected allegations of mistreatment or physical violence.
The UN also counted inhalation of tear gas as “maiming,” while Israel said the gas is “a non-violent and widely accepted means to suppress violent, life-threatening protests, caus[ing]at worst, injuries with short-lived effects” and as such should not be included. Tear gas inhalation was not mentioned in other countries’ reports in the past.
Israel cooperated with the special representative of the UN secretary-general for children and armed conflict Virginia Gamba when she visited Israel in December to work on her report.
The UN warned Israel and the Palestinian Authority last year that they could be on their blacklist if they do not do more to protect children in the conflict.
Tovah Lazaroff contributed to this report.