FORWARD – Israel has accused a senior U.N. official of misconduct in preparing a report that harshly criticized the Israeli army over the 2014 Gaza war while leaving it off a blacklist of states and armed groups that violate children’s rights in conflict.
In his latest report on children and armed conflict, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said “the unprecedented and unacceptable scale of the impact on children in 2014 raises grave concerns about Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian law … (and) excessive use of force.”
Although formally presented in Ban’s name, the report was prepared by his envoy on children and armed conflict, Leila Zerrougui of Algeria.
Israeli U.N. Ambassador Ron Prosor accused her of “biased conduct against Israel.” He also denied Israel had violated international law during the war.
In a letter to Ban, seen by Reuters, Prosor voiced “deep concerns regarding the improper conduct – at every working level – of the office of … Zerrougui in the process of drafting and producing the report.”
More than 2,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians and including 540 children, were killed during last year’s 50-day Gaza Strip war between Hamas and Israel, while 67 Israeli soldiers and six civilians in Israel were killed.
A U.N. inquiry found that Israel fired on seven U.N. schools and killed 44 Palestinians seeking shelter, while Palestinian militants hid weapons and launched attacks from U.N. schools.
Prosor said Zerrougui’s office “repeatedly refused attempts on our part to provide official evidence and facts.”
Zerrougui rejected Israel’s accusations.
“Israel has been in this report since 2005, every year it’s the same process that we apply,” Zerrougui told reporters. “Last year I was here, I was not accused of misconduct. The year before I was here, I was not accused of misconduct.”
Zerrougui said Israel had the standard two weeks and three additional days to respond.
According to U.N. officials, Zerrougui included Israel on a draft blacklist of violators of children’s rights, although Ban decided not to include Israel’s army on the final blacklist, which names groups like the Taliban and Boko Haram.
Prosor said the report disproportionately focused on Israel, even though Iraq, where Islamic State militants control significant territory, had the highest number of child casualties.
The report includes 32 paragraphs on Israel, compared with eight on Iraq, 15 on Afghanistan, 18 on Syria and 11 on Darfur.
Zerrougui’s report did not explicitly accuse Hamas of any crimes against children. Several Israeli officials said on condition of anonymity that Israel told Zerrougui’s office how Hamas rockets severely damaged Israeli medical centers and schools – details that were not mentioned.
The officials also accused the human rights groups that helped draft the report of bias.
Hmmm
But, but…….how dare you! You have no right to judge Israel by what it actually does in the real world. We demand you judge Israel by what we say it does. I think NutenYahoo’s dementia has infected his entire administration. And remember; if you read something positive about Israel in the Media, it is absolutely, positively the truth. On the other hand, if you read something negative about Israel, don’t believe a word, it is just another Anti-Semite who hates Israel and by extension, all Jews.
The real reason of zionist criminal operation Edge was to stole, appropriate, and profit from Gaza’s natural gas discovered by British in Gaza in 2,000.
yup, Israel wants thet Gaza gas and will gladly kill every Palestinian for that gas…..but they want to kill all Palestinians even if there was no gas.
There is no more vicious Godless piece of filthy crap than Benjamin Satanyahu. He is a barbaric murderer. The same sick twisted insane mentality sick race we know as Jews who have murdered tens of thousand of innocent defenseless helpless Palestinians men, women and children with the depraved Old Testament sick twisted mentality that created holy acts out of pure cold blooded murder.
The Jews hate any one who tells them the truth. That is why they killed Jesus.
Jesus didn’t warned us about the Muslims, he warned us about the Jews.