Some long-overdue attention is finally being directed to Israel’s war against the children of Gaza. “The outrageous death of children is almost historically unique. This is an extremely dark place in history,” Bragi Gudbrandsson, vice chair of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), told reporters, reported Middle East Eye. “I don’t think we have seen before a violation that is so massive as we’ve seen in Gaza. These are extremely grave violations that we do not often see.”
The CRC, which monitors compliance of state parties to the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, on Sept. 19 released its findings on six state parties to the treaty, including Israel, after a review during its latest session. According to MEE, the committee said in its report that it 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 Israel’s “indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks.”
During UN hearings that preceded the report, Israel denied that its war on Gaza violated the treaty or international humanitarian law.
In addition to calling out Israel for killing Palestinian children, the CRC also expressed its 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 release all Palestinian children arbitrarily detained and halt the practice. It also called on Israel to “abolish the institutionalized system of detention and the use of torture and ill-treatment against them at all stages of the judicial procedure.”
