-United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has added Israel’s military to a global list of offenders who have committed violations against children, as 77 people were killed in new Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli envoy to the UN Gilad Erdan said he was officially notified of the decision on Friday. The global list is included in a report on children and armed conflict that is due to be submitted to the UN Security Council on June 14.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz said the decision would impact the country’s relations with the United Nations.
A hospital in Gaza reported that at least 37 Palestinians were killed by an Israeli attack on a UN-operated school on Thursday.
The United States has urged Israel to provide complete transparency regarding7 the strike.
“The government of Israel has said that they are going to release more information about this strike, including the names of those who died in it. We expect them to be fully transparent in making that information public,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.
UN chief Antonio Guterres called the strike “just another horrific example of the price that civilians are paying”.
“There will need to be accountability for everything that has happened in Gaza,” his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called for the strike to be “independently investigated”.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah, near Nuseirat, said it had received the bodies of at least “37 martyrs” from the strike.
The conflict has killed thousands, laid waste to much of the Gaza Strip, uprooted most of its 2.4 million people and put them at risk of starvation.
Efforts to mediate the first ceasefire since a week-long pause in November appear to have stalled, only a week after US President Joe Biden offered a new roadmap.
