UN Child Rights Committee urges Israel to stop 'killing, injuring children in Gaza'

By Beyza Binnur Donmez

GENEVA (AA) — The UN Child Rights Committee urged Israel to immediately stop killing and injuring Palestinian children in Gaza in its findings it issued on Thursday.

After reviewing the six states parties during its latest session, the committee released findings on Argentina, Armenia, Bahrain, Israel, Mexico, and Turkmenistan.

"The Committee was greatly concerned about the high number of children in Gaza killed, maimed, injured, missing, displaced, orphaned and subjected to famine, malnutrition and disease, as a result of the State party’s indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks," it said in a news release.

"It urged the State party to immediately cease the killing and injuring of Palestinian children in Gaza, to ensure safe and unrestricted humanitarian access to and within the Gaza Strip, and to allow entry of all construction materials necessary for Palestinian families to rebuild homes and civilian and public infrastructure," it added.

The committee also expressed "deep" concern about the "continued abduction, arbitrary arrest, and prolonged detention of large numbers of Palestinian children by Israeli forces, mostly without charge, trial or access to legal representation or contact with family members."

It urged Israel to immediately end "the arbitrary and administrative detention of children, to release all Palestinian children who have been arbitrarily detained, and to abolish the institutionalized system of detention and the use of torture and ill-treatment against them at all stages of the judicial procedure."

- No Israeli measures identified to prevent child deaths in Gaza

Detailing its findings at a news conference in Geneva, the committee said it could not identify any measures taken by Israel to protect children of Gaza during its military operation.

"We did try to get answers on the measures Israel had taken to protect children in densely populated areas during military operations in accordance with international humanitarian law," said Bragi Gudbrandsson, vice chair of the committee.

Gudbrandsson emphasized that the use of wide-area weapons in residential areas, including homes where multi-generational families live, "certainly raises concerns" about the protection of civilians, especially children.

"We did not get any sufficient answers to this, and I think the figures speak for themselves," he said. "I don't think we can identify any particular measure that has been taken to save children's lives in this military operation in Gaza."

He also said that Israel "did admit to its obligation under international humanitarian law" during the discussions with the committee, but that it "did not, in our view, provide us with sufficient information that led us to believe that they had taken any measures to avoid death, to preserve life in Gaza."

Over the course of nearly a year, Israeli attacks have killed over 41,000 people, most of them women and children, and injured over 95,500, according to local health authorities.

The Israeli onslaught has displaced almost the entire population of the territory amid an ongoing blockade that has led to severe shortages of food, clean water, and medicine.

Israel also faces accusations of genocide for its actions in Gaza at the International Court of Justice.