UN chief Ban Ki-Moon and PM Netanyahu
UN chief Ban Ki-Moon and PM NetanyahuFlash 90

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Thursday night blasted the UN’s hypocrisy, after the head of the global body, Ban Ki-moon, accused the IDF of making Gazan children "suffer" last summer in its counter-terror operation.

"This is a dark day for the United Nations,” Netanyahu said. “Instead of mentioning the fact that Hamas turned Gaza's children into hostages when it fired from kindergartens on the children of Israel, the UN chooses again to preach to Israel, which makes sure to act according to international standards, as determined by just this week by senior generals from the United States and Europe.”

"At the same time,” Netanyahu continued, “the Hamas terrorist organization receives immunity from the UN despite the fact that it has been proven beyond doubt that it committed war crimes when it fired from hospitals, mosques, and UN facilities. It turns out that there is no limit to the hypocrisy."

Ban had earlier said that last year “was one of the worst in recent memory for children in countries affected by conflict" and added he is "deeply alarmed at the suffering of so many children as a result of Israeli military operations in Gaza last year."

More than 500 children died during the conflict in Gaza last year, although Ban failed to note that Hamas embedded its terror infrastructure in civilian populations to maximize casualties on the Gazan side and portray the IDF negatively. Hamas also widely used civilian shields, callously using local people and particularly children in the line of fire.

Israel has pointed out that many facilities in Gaza were struck because they were being used to fire rockets on Israeli civilians and store weapons.

Hamas has been busily developing its domestic rocket arsenal since the last war and is siphoning off construction goods to rebuild its terror attack tunnels into Israel, in preparation for its next terror war against the Jewish state.

Netanyahu’s comments followed earlier criticism from Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely (Likud), who said the UN was showing “outrageous bias” against Israel.

"At a time when ceaseless war rages in the Middle East and children are slaughtered on a daily basis, the UN decides to mention Israel in the same breath with states that since long ago have not had any basic human rights," she said.

Israeli Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor also criticized the UN on Thursday, responding to the UN report on children and armed conflict which was prepared by Leila Zerrougui of Algeria.

Ban said the report showed "the unprecedented and unacceptable scale of the impact on children in 2014 raises grave concerns about Israel's compliance with international humanitarian law...(and) excessive use of force.”

Prosor responded, saying that Israel asked to provide information for the report but was refused, as Zerrougui relied only on radical anti-Israel groups. The report completely failed to mention Hamas's role in the impact on children in Gaza.

The ambassador further pointed out that 2% of the report discusses Iraq and Islamic State (ISIS), while 6% of it is dedicated to Syria. Over 10% of the report, though, discusses Israel's “aggression against children.”