Iran says Israel is not qualified for membership in any organization dedicated to promoting and safeguarding the rights of women and children, citing the appalling situation in Gaza.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan’ani on Thursday cited an UNRWA report that since the beginning of the war on Gaza, at least 165 employees of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees have been killed in Israeli attacks.
“So far, more than 150 centers belonging to UNRWA, such as schools, have been bombed, some of which have been completely destroyed. More than 400 Palestinians have been killed in UN-affiliated centers in Gaza while searching for safe places,” he wrote on his personal account.
“A regime that does not value international humanitarian organizations and their missions and services, and even the lives of their employees, and has killed about 9,000 Palestinian women and 12,500 children in the last five months, does not have the qualification to be a member or remain in any of the human rights associations and international mechanisms related to the rights of women and children.”
Over two-thirds of those killed and injured during Israel’s onslaught on Gaza are women and girls, UN Secretary-General António Guterres told the opening of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in New York on Monday.
Addressing the forum, Iran’s Vice President for Women and Family Affairs Ensiyeh Khazali called upon the United Nations to remove Israel from the panel.
“The free people of the world expect the regime responsible for decades of displacement, rape and murder of millions of women and children, not to have a seat in the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women,” she said.
In January, the United Nations agency promoting gender equality said an estimated two mothers were losing their lives every hour since Israel unleashed its war on Gaza in early October.
UN Women pointed to gender inequality and the burden on women fleeing the war with children and being displaced again and again. Of the territory’s 2.3 million population, it said, 1.9 million are displaced and “close to one million are women and girls” seeking shelter and safety.
