Nations should be ashamed by levels of violence against children, says Ban Ki-moon

The UN reported a 21 per cent increase in grave violations against children in conflicts for the year

A Palestinian boy, 4, suffering from malnutrition in a hospital in central Gaza City. AFP

Ban Ki-moon, the former head of the UN, has urged the Security Council to increase protection for children around the world affected by conflicts as violence against minors reached “extreme levels” in 2023.

Mr Ban, who was UN Secretary General between 2007 and 2016, said it should be “a matter of shame” for nations at the Security Council that innocent children continue to pay “a terrible price in the multiple conflicts being waged across our world.”

The annual report, Children in Armed Conflict, reported a 21 per cent rise in grave violations against children in conflicts, the highest number of annual violations in almost a decade.

Mr Ban said there should be no impunity for any group or state committing crimes against children.

For the first time, the UN report put Israeli forces on its blacklist of countries that violate children’s rights for the killing and maiming of children and attacking schools and hospitals.

It also listed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants for the first time for killing, injuring and abducting children.

The UN has verified more than 8,000 grave violations against 4,247 Palestinian children and 113 Israeli children in 2023, reflecting the scale and human cost of the conflict.

Mr Ban said the inclusion of Israeli armed and security forces and Palestinian armed groups on the list was an “important step in terms of seeking accountability".

Speaking on behalf of the Arab group in the council, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the UN, Abdulaziz Alwasil, welcomed Mr Ban's decision to include the Israeli military on the blacklist for “heinous crimes” against Palestinian children, including attacking hospitals and schools in an “appalling and shocking manner”.

He demanded the international community bear its responsibilities in protecting Palestinian children in the occupied territories, including in East Jerusalem, and force Israel as “the occupying power to comply with the laws that guarantee and safeguard the rights of children”.

Noa Furman, Israel's deputy UN ambassador, said Israel's inclusion on the blacklist was based on inflated casualty numbers from Hamas-controlled sources.

“A report aimed at protecting children should be based on rigorously verified facts, not manipulated data used for political purposes,” Ms Furman said.

“The decision to include Israel in the annex of the report, alongside terrorist organisations, is not only unjust an incomprehensible, but counter-productive for the purposes of the report and our mutual efforts to protect children.”

Referring to the 2024 report as a “sobering snapshot”, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US ambassador to the UN, said children in Gaza have borne far too much in a war set into motion by Hamas’s surprise attack on southern Israel on October 7.

The war has resulted in a 155 per cent increase in grave violations against children, mainly due to the use of explosive weapons in densely populated areas in the enclave, the 49-page report said.

“The fighting could stop today if Hamas agreed to the deal on the table, to which Israel has already agreed,” Ms Thomas-Greenfield said.

“Instead, its leaders cynically hide themselves in a network of tunnels, and their weapons and ammunition in schools, mosques and hospitals, putting Palestinian children at risk, to protect themselves.

“These cowardly, craven tactics did not diminish Israel’s obligation to protect civilians, including children, in Gaza, and to further co-ordinate with the UN in facilitating humanitarian assistance."

A father kisses his injured child's foot after an Israeli strike in Deir Al Balah, in the central Gaza Strip. Reuters