UN Secretary-General Warns Israeli Settlers Could Be Blacklisted for Child Abuses

JAKARTA - UN Secretary-General António Guterres has warned of the potential inclusion of Israeli settler groups on a global blacklist for violations against children, expressing concern over a worrying increase in violations against Palestinian children.

The UN's annual report on children and armed conflict documents the killing of 2,668 children in Gaza and 57 in the West Bank.

The report confirms that as many as 38,558 grave violations against children were recorded globally in 2025, affecting 24,174 children, the highest number recorded since the UN monitoring mechanism on children and armed conflict was established in 1996.

The data also showed that 14,224 children were killed or injured, with the death toll increasing by 34 percent compared to 2024, reaching 6,266.

A senior UN official said in a briefing on the report, "The countries with the highest rates of violations in 2025 are the occupied Palestinian territory, Israel, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Myanmar and Somalia."

Israel already appears on the so-called "shameful annex" of the report for violations, but this latest edition highlights, for the first time, settlers as a potential future inclusion on the list.

"I am shocked by the scale of the grave violations committed against children in the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel, in particular the widespread use of explosive weapons in densely populated areas," Guterres said in the report, launching WAFA (19/6).

The UN Secretary-General voiced concern over the significant increase in attacks by settlers that have resulted in grave violations against Palestinian children.

He also said that settlement groups would have to be added to the list if a high number of violations were repeated in 2026.

The report also noted that 9,465 of the serious violations were attributed to the Israeli military and 326 to settlers.

The report defines grave violations as including the killing and maiming of children, rape and other forms of sexual violence, as well as attacks on schools and hospitals.