The upcoming inclusion of Israel on a UN list of countries and armed forces determined to be failing to protect children in war prompted a furious Israeli response Friday.
The annual "Children and Armed Conflict" report from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is not due to be published until June 18, but Israel's UN ambassador, Gilad Erdan, spoke out after receiving private notification of the inclusion.
"I am utterly shocked and disgusted by this shameful decision," Erdan said in a statement.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted on his X social media account that the UN "put itself today on history's blacklist when it adopted the absurd claims of Hamas."
"The IDF is the most moral military in the world and no 'flat earth' decision by the UN secretary-general can change that," he wrote, referring to the Israel Defense Forces.
The Palestinian envoy to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, said adding Israel to the "list of shame" would not restore the lives of children killed or left permanently disabled in Israeli military attacks.
"But it is an important step in the right direction towards ending the double standards and the culture of impunity Israel has enjoyed for far too long and that left our children vulnerable," he said on X.
A diplomatic source told AFP that Hamas and another Palestinian militant group, Islamic Jihad, would also appear on the list.
Erdan lashed out at Guterres personally, saying: "The only one who is blacklisted today is the secretary-general."
"Now Hamas will continue even more to use schools and hospitals because this shameful decision of the secretary-general will only give Hamas hope," he said.
Gaza is suffering through a war which broke out after Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 36,731 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. Of those, some 15,000 have been minors, according to Gaza's government press office.
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