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UN Human Rights Council logoIsrael News Photo: (file)

Cuba teamed up with a consortium of Arab countries at a meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council on Wednesday to vent their anger against Israel.

The nations accused the Jewish State of grossly violating the rights of Palestinian Authority children during Israel’s counterterrorism Operation 'Cast Lead' in Gaza, reported the Reuters news agency. The charges were leveled during a debate marking the 20th anniversary of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, a document signed by most, but not all of the U.N.’s 192 member nations.

Operation 'Cast Lead', which was aimed at stopping the constant missile and mortar attacks by Gaza terrorists on Israel's civilians in the south, ran from December 27, 2008 to January 18, 2009.

Figures from an IDF investigation revealed that of the 1,100 – 1,200 reported casualties, 250 were civilians. “To Israel’s great sorrow, innocent civilians in Gaza have been harmed,” read a statement from Israel’s Foreign Affairs Ministry following the operation. “However, the figures of civilian casualties have been greatly exaggerated. Most of these figures come from Hamas sources, amplifying the number of civilians killed by including as “children” teenage Hamas fighters and as “women,” female terrorists.

A Yemeni member of the Arab consortium claimed the military operation, which specifically targeted Hamas and allied terrorists, “left children as the main victims, with many severely wounded, and even many cases of a serious pathological nature.” The Yemeni delegate, who spoke for all of the Arab states on the 47-member Council, called the 'Cast Lead' operation “a violation of every humanitarian law.”

A coalition of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) countered the Islamic bloc’s accusations with pointed reminders of the atrocities committed in Muslim nations. The Islamic bloc, bolstered by African states, China, Cuba and Russia, holds a majority on the Council.

The NGOs charged that in Iran, as well as in Sudan, Yemen, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, the governments actually execute children, and referred to the practice as “the ultimate barbarity: states killing their own children.”

An Italian delegate said pointedly that the Council should uphold and enforce the U.N. Convention’s ban on executing offenders who commit crimes while under the age of 18.

International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) representative Roy Brown said that 32 children had been executed by the five Islamic nations since 2005; of those, 26 had been put to death by Iran alone. He added that another 133 people who had committed crimes while under the age of 18 still remain jailed in Iran, awaiting execution.