by Israel National News
Virginia Gamba, special representative to the U.N. secretary-general, told JNS that word count limits left no space to mention that the terror organization embeds deliberately among civilians.
 |
| UN Security Council Reuters, Andrew Kelly |
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Jewish state’s mission to the United Nations reacted strongly to a U.N. official’s explanation that limited word count led to the exclusion of Hamas's use of human shields from a controversial blacklist that included Israel.
Virginia Gamba, special representative to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres for children and armed conflict, briefed reporters last Thursday on the annual Children and Armed Conflict report, also known as the “list of shame.”
Jewish News Syndicate asked Gamba why her report contained only one sentence on Hamas’s use of human shields, a crucial element of the terrorist group’s military strategy and key to understanding the casualty toll among Gazan children in Israel’s conflict with Hamas.
“If we included everything in the annual report for every situation, it would be at least 1,000 pages,” Gamba told JNS. “We have to choose very carefully what to include in the report, ensuring the figures and as much context as possible. But we have always been constrained from fully contextualizing each paragraph due to word count limitations. Perhaps by mentioning it here, it will be heard.”
Gamba noted that she requested extra numbers on the word count for her annual report, dictated by U.N. Security Council resolutions and other restrictions, which she deemed “inappropriate. It is mainly a financial issue and a matter of standardization across the U.N. system,” adding that, “I’m not saying that if I had more space, you would have more answers.”
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs didn’t buy that explanation.
“As evident in the press conference and as repeatedly stated by Israel, the CAAC report is riddled with methodological problems, double standards, and inaccuracies,” the ministry stated.
“Limited word count and budget restrictions are a poor excuse for the U.N.’s fundamental failure, making a grotesque and false moral equivalency between Hamas and the IDF,” the ministry stated. “This is yet another glaring example of the moral bankruptcy the U.N. has reached under Secretary-General Guterres’s leadership.”
Israel National News
Source: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/391780
No comments:
Post a Comment