Israel clashes with U.N. over child abuse blacklist report

Israel and senior U.N. officials collided openly at United Nations headquarters in New York on Friday, turning a hearing on sexual violence in conflict into a fight over how the world documents harm to children in war. Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon demanded the resignation of Pramila Patten and accused her of bias over a report that blacklisted Israel for alleged abuses, while U.N. official Vanessa Frazier cut in to say he should stop making personal attacks and that her office had verified evidence.

Danon then told Frazier to be quiet and called the report shameful, underscoring how deeply the accusations have inflamed relations between Israel and the world body. The confrontation came as the U.N. marked the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict, a setting meant to spotlight accountability but instead exposing how contested that accountability has become when a major party rejects the findings outright.

The dispute sits inside the U.N.’s annual Children and Armed Conflict system, which is designed to record grave violations against children, including killing and maiming, rape and other sexual violence, and attacks on schools and hospitals. In its 2025 report, the system recorded 38,558 grave violations worldwide affecting 24,174 children, the highest figure since the mandate began in 1996. The same report said 14,224 children were killed or maimed and 6,266 were killed, a 34% increase from 2024.

The U.N. verified the killing of 2,668 Palestinian children in Gaza and 57 in the West Bank in that 2025 report, and another U.N. report said 9,465 grave violations were attributed to Israeli forces and 326 to Israeli settlers. Hamas’ armed wing and affiliated factions were attributed 2,806 violations. One U.N. report warned that Israeli settler groups could be added to a global blacklist if the level of violations is repeated, while both reports also blacklisted Hamas.

The fallout has widened beyond the chamber. Danon had already called the earlier U.N. report “a new low,” and Israel’s foreign ministry threatened to sever ties with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres after that finding. Guterres, who is nearing the end of his 10-year term at year-end, has less political capital to calm the dispute as the war in Gaza and the wider conduct of military operations remain under U.N. scrutiny.

A separate U.N.-appointed investigative commission said on June 9 that Palestinian civilians were being systematically and deliberately subjected to severe human-rights violations by both Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Hamas-affiliated forces in Gaza. It said settler attacks last year killed at least seven Palestinians and injured 832, a 130% increase from 2024, adding another layer to a conflict in which child-protection reporting itself has become a battleground.