It’s time serious effort is made to end the war

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will be informing the Security Council about the list of countries and organisations placed on the blacklist for targeting children in conflict zones.

His office informed Israeli ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, that Israel’s name is on the list. The UN is also including Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad on the blacklist. More than 15,000 children were killed among the 36,000 by Israeli soldiers in its war in Gaza. This is the count of civilian deaths.

Israel has reacted vehemently to the UN decision. Both Erdan and Israeli defence minister Gantz claimed that the Israeli army is the most moral in the world. They did not answer the questions whether the Israeli army operations caused the death and maiming of children. Erdan said in his X post: “This is simply outrageous and wrong. I responded to the shameful decision and said that our army is the most moral in the world.”

And he went on to attack the Secretary-General, saying “who incentivises and encourages terrorism and is motivated by hatred towards Israel.” Gueterres’ spokesperson Stephane Dujarric hit back at Erdan for going public with the intimation given to him about the decision as a courtesy, and said, “It Is done to give those countries a heads-up and avoid leaks” and found Erdan’s leak to the social media as “shocking and unacceptable.”

Senior Palestinian official Riad Malki responded to the UN decision to add Israel to the blacklist, and said, “Now, faced with the catastrophe in Gaza that the world sees its with naked eyes with the genocide that specifically targets children and women, the UN secretary general no longer has excuses not to place Israel on the blacklist.”

When the secretary-general places the annexe listing the blacklisted countries before the Security Council, it is left to the members, with five of the permanent powers with veto power, to take action. As the US is one of the permanent members and it has been supporting Israel, it is expected that no action will be taken against Israel. A similar thing had happened when the UN listed Russia on the blacklist for the violence against Ukrainian children in the war. The others who are on the blacklist include the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Syria and Haiti.

Israel has taken a very hostile stance towards the UN, especially with regard to the ongoing war in Gaza, rejecting every observation of the world body, and ignoring every appeal for peace by Secretary-General Guterres with contempt and anger.

After Friday’s decision by the UN, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that that the “UN has blacklisted itself.” The US, which has remained an unconditional supporter of Israel, has been pushing the Netanyahu government to agree to a ceasefire but to no avail.

US President Joe Biden had gone further than any American leader when he said that if Israel did not agree to a ceasefire, then the US arms supply would be halted. There have been reports that Israel and Hamas are being nudged towards truce with conditions, but it has been a slow and lengthy process. Hamas had agreed to the US offer, but Israel had backed out. Later, Israel showed interest in the truce process. Meanwhile, the war in Gaza rages on, with the Israeli army intruding into all parts at will, and destroying schools and hospitals, and residential neighbourhoods. Hamas has a few days back fired missiles into Gaza after the war broke out between the two sides in October last. It showed that Israel had failed to eliminate the Hamas bases in Gaza despite its aim to do so. Well, it is time the blame game stopped and the conflict ended.