GENEVA: The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child insisted Wednesday that children must be protected during the war in the Middle East, highlighting an alleged air strike on an Iranian school.
Iran has blamed Israel and the United States for the strike on the school in the Iranian city of Minab on the first day of the war on Saturday, giving a toll of more than 150 dead.
Neither the United States nor Israel have confirmed the attack, and AFP has been unable to independently verify the toll or visit the site.
“The committee is alarmed by reports of strikes on civilian infrastructure, including schools and hospitals, which have injured and traumatized children, and claimed many young lives,” it said.
“This is a reminder that children are among the most vulnerable in armed conflicts, and must never be treated as collateral damage.”
According to state media, Iran on Tuesday held funerals for at least 165 people, including students, killed in the alleged strike.
State television carried images showing a large crowd of mourners in Minab weeping over what appeared to be bodies wrapped in white shrouds.
The UN committee’s 18 independent experts are tasked with monitoring how countries implement the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The convention came into force in 1990. Every United Nations member state is a party, except the United States.
The convention requires countries to safeguard the rights to life, survival and development of every child, and to take all measures to ensure children’s rights are respected in armed conflicts.
“Children must be protected from direct and indirect effects of hostilities,” the committee said.
It call for an immediate and sustained ceasefire by all parties to the Middle East war “so that children are no longer exposed to killing, maiming, displacement, psychological harm, or other violations of their rights.”
It urged the warring parties to take all necessary measures to protect children, including ensuring that schools and hospitals are not attacked and that humanitarians can safely reach children in need.
The committee’s opinions are non-binding but carry reputational weight.
Children must not be ‘collateral damage’ in Mideast war: UN experts
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Children must not be ‘collateral damage’ in Mideast war: UN experts
- Iran has blamed Israel and the United States for the strike on the school in the Iranian city of Minab on the first day of the war
Refugees, migrants in Lebanon find rare sanctuary from Israeli strikes in Beirut church
- Beirut church offers safe haven for displaced migrants, refugees
- Many refugees lived through 2024 war, but are now more vulnerable
BEIRUT: When Israeli strikes began pummelling Beirut’s southern suburbs early on Monday, Sudanese refugee Ridina Muhammad and her family had no choice but to flee home on foot, eventually reaching the only shelter that would accept them: a church.
Eight months pregnant, Muhammad, 32, walked with her husband and three children for hours in the dark streets until they found a car to take them to the St. Joseph Tabaris Parish, which has opened its doors to refugees and migrants.
They are among 300,000 people displaced across Lebanon this week by heavy Israeli strikes, launched in response to a rocket and drone attackinto Israel by the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.
Just 100,000 of the displaced are in government shelters. Others are staying with relatives or sleeping in the streets. But migrants and refugees say government shelters were never an option for them, saying they were turned away during the last war between Hezbollah and Israel.
Muhammad’s oldest daughter, now seven, stopped speaking after the 2024 war.
This time, they are even more vulnerable: their home was destroyed in this week’s strikes and Muhammad is due to give birth at the end of the month.
“I don’t know if there’s a doctor or not, but I’m really scared about it because I haven’t prepared any clothes for the baby, nor arranged a hospital, and I don’t know where to go,” she told Reuters as her younger daughter leaned against her pregnant belly.
Muhammad said she was registered with the United Nations’ refugee agency (UNHCR) but had not received support.
“Us, as refugees, why did we register with the UN, if they are not helping us in the most difficult times?” she said.
Dalal Harb, a spokesperson for UNHCR Lebanon, said the agency had mobilized but reaching everyone immediately was extremely challenging given the scale and speed of displacement. The UNHCR operation in Lebanon is currently only around 14 percent funded, she said.
The Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS), which helped the church host displaced in 2024, is doing so again.
Michael Petro, JRS’ Emergency Shelter Director, said the church was full within the first day of strikes, with 140 people from South Sudan, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, and other countries sheltering there.
“There are many, many more people coming than there were in 2024, and we have fewer and fewer places to put them,” he said.
Petro said he was told weeks ago that government shelters would be open to migrants if war erupted.
But when the strikes began and even Lebanese struggled to find shelter, the policy seemed to change, he said.
“We’re hearing from hotlines up to government officials and ministries that migrants are not welcome,” Petro said.
Lebanon’s Minister for Social Affairs Haneen Sayyed did not respond to a request for comment. On Thursday, Sayyed said Beirut shelters were full.
When Israeli strikes began, Othman Yahyeh Dawood, a 41-year-old Sudanese man, put his two young sons on his motorcycle.
They drove 75 kilometers (46 miles) from the southern Lebanese town of Nabatieh to St. Joseph’s, where they had sheltered in 2024.
“I know the area is safe and there are people who will welcome us,” he said.
“We don’t know where to go; there’s war there (in the south), war here (in Beirut), war in Sudan, and nowhere else to go,” he said.
