UN: 2024 witnessed record number of grave violations against children in conflicts in nearly 30 years
Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict Virginia Gamba stated in her briefing to an open debate of the UN Security Council that wars and armed conflicts inflict horrific levels of violence on children.
"It is as if parties to war and conflict, and we, the international community, choose to settle our disputes through military means at an enormous cost for our children, rather than choosing to negotiate peace for the benefit of all children," she added.
"We cannot continue to stand by and watch with no action what is happening to the children globally, and especially in Gaza. The scale of destruction and suffering borne by the children of Gaza defies and contravenes every human standard. There is no justification for depriving children of access to the means for their survival, including access to food, healthcare, and security," Gamba stressed.
The UN official highlighted the importance of providing sustainable resources to mitigate these violations, noting the difficulties they faced in monitoring, verification, and reporting. "The reduction of child protection expertise will lead to the inability to verify violations and, more importantly, identify perpetrators of such violations," she added.
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15 hours ago
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Palestinian resistance is legally justified
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This shift transforms the legal landscape, strengthening the case for legitimate resistance. International humanitarian law's principles of distinction and proportionality apply to all parties, including resistance movements. However, these same principles demand scrutiny of Israel's reoccupation strategy, which has demonstrably failed both tests. By systematically targeting hospitals, schools and water treatment facilities, Israel violates Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention — acts constituting war crimes. The International Court of Justice's recent advisory opinion confirms that prolonged occupation with settlement policies violates international law. This makes reoccupation a clear breach of Article 43 of the Hague Regulations. A Palestinian woman walks inside the damaged Islamic University of Gaza, where she shelters, in Gaza City. - Reuters From a moral perspective, when occupying powers systematically violate international law, resistance becomes not just legally permissible but morally imperative. The human consequences of these legal violations are devastating. According to UN agencies, 1.9 million Palestinians have been displaced, 70 per cent of hospitals are non-functional and 90 per cent face acute food insecurity. This represents what international legal scholars increasingly recognise as weaponising basic necessities to facilitate reoccupation and long-term control. The economic dimension reveals equally calculated destruction. Sara Roy's seminal research on Gaza's 'de-development' demonstrates the systematic dismantling of Palestinian economic capacity to create dependency. Gaza's fishing fleet was reduced from 15,000 to 4,000 workers through Israeli restrictions. Agricultural exports providing sustainable livelihoods have been banned or severely restricted. Reoccupation eliminates remaining economic independence to ensure Palestinian dependency on Israeli-controlled aid and governance. This constitutes collective punishment that international law explicitly prohibits, further justifying resistance. Perhaps most troubling is international acquiescence to reoccupation. This undermines the very legal frameworks justifying the Palestinian resistance. Why is Ukrainian resistance to the Russian war celebrated as heroic while the Palestinian resistance to Israeli reoccupation condemned as terrorism? The United States provides Israel with $3.8 billion annually in military assistance, funding reoccupation operations against Palestinian civilians. European Union trade agreements continue despite the bloc's own determination that Israeli settlements violate international law. 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