Israeli envoy clashes with UN officials over child violations report

Nearly 25,000 children caught in armed conflict suffered a record number of grave violations in 2025, and for the first time in three decades of United Nations monitoring, government forces — not armed groups — were responsible for the majority of abuses, according to the Secretary-General's annual report released this week.abcnews+1

The report verified 38,558 violations across conflict zones worldwide, a figure that rose for a fourth consecutive year. Those violations — including killings, rape, recruitment to fight, abductions, attacks on schools and hospitals, and denial of humanitarian access — affected 24,174 children, a third of them girls.news.un+1

Government Forces Top the List

Topping the blacklist is the Israeli military and its security forces, with 12,445 verified violations, followed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo with 4,114, and Myanmar, Somalia, and armed groups in Nigeria each exceeding 2,000. Government forces from Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, and Russia's armed forces in Ukraine are also listed.abcnews

Government forces were identified as "the main perpetrators" of 6,266 child killings — a 34 percent increase from the previous year — along with 7,958 injuries. The U.N. verified the killing of 2,668 Palestinian children by Israeli forces in Gaza and 55 in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, with reports of an additional 4,588 child deaths in Gaza still being verified.news.un+1

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was "appalled by the magnitude of grave violations" and urged Israel to sign a plan with the U.N. to end the killing and maiming of children.abcnews

Heated Clash at the UN

The report triggered a diplomatic confrontation at U.N. headquarters on Friday. At a public hearing marking the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict, Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon demanded the resignation of Pramila Patten, the U.N. special representative on sexual violence in conflict, accusing her of bias after her office added Israel to a blacklist for the first time.reuters+1

When Vanessa Frazier, the U.N. special representative for children and armed conflict, interjected to demand Danon stop making "personal attacks," the exchange devolved into a shouting match. "You will be quiet … you and your shameful report," Danon told Frazier.jpost+1

Gaza's Children Face Deepening Crisis

UNICEF has separately warned that no hospital in the Gaza Strip is fully operational and that water remains "a daily uncertainty" for 1.1 million children. The agency reported that recruitment and use of children in conflict reached 6,607 cases worldwide, with the highest numbers in Congo, Nigeria, Haiti, Somalia, and Colombia, while 5,129 children were abducted and 1,783 were victims of rape and sexual violence.un+3

"Protecting children is not an aspiration but an obligation," Frazier said, "and the decisions taken today will shape the futures they may or may not live to claim".abcnews