Two UN Economic and Social Council resolutions passed last week accused and singled out Israel as the only country violating women's rights, according to UN Watch, a non-governmental organization.
Among the 54 countries on the UN council that favored the resolutions were Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan, Venezuela and Egypt.
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Seven European countries also voted in favor: Norway, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Ireland, Luxembourg and Malta.
The first resolution condemned the Jewish state for allegedly being the "major obstacle" for Palestinian women "with regard to their advancement, self-reliance, and integration in the development of their society."
The second resolution passed addressed the "social repercussions of the Israeli occupation."
Canada and the United States voted against while the United Kingdom, Germany, Brazil, Mexico, Romania and Ukraine abstained.
Former US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley on Thursday blasted the resolutions, saying "It amazes me how the UN condones votes like these."
"It is a total mockery of human rights to allow Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, and Yemen to name Israel as the world's only violator of women's rights," she wrote on Twitter.
UN Watch director, Hillel Neuer, also condemned the sole targeting of Israel by the UN council.
"The UN reached new heights of absurdity by singling out Israel alone on women's rights, yet saying nothing on Iran holding women's rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh behind bars, Saudi Arabia jailing and torturing women's rights activists, and subjugating women under harsh male guardianship laws, or on Yemen denying women hospital treatment without the permission of a male relative," Neuer said.
"When you have Iran, Saudi Arabia and Yemen among the UN council members accusing Israel of violating women's rights, you are in the theater of the absurd."
Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday blacklisted Israel and Saudi Arabia for killing or wounding children in conflict.
The report to the Security Council said the Saudi Arabia-led military coalition fighting in Yemen killed or wounded 729 children during 2018, accounting for nearly half the total child casualties in that war.
Guterres also reported that the highest number of Palestinian children had been killed or wounded last year since 2014, mainly by Israeli forces, though no parties were blacklisted in the annex to the annual Children in Armed Conflict report, seen by Reuters.
The report, which does not subject those listed to action but rather shames parties to conflicts in the hope of pushing them to implement measures to protect children, has long been controversial with diplomats saying Saudi Arabia and Israel both exerted pressure in recent years in a bid to stay off the list.
In 2015 the United Nations left Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas off the blacklist, after they had been included in an earlier draft, but criticized Israel over its military operation, Operation Protective Edge, in the summer of 2014. Israel denied lobbying then Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the issue.
In an effort to dampen controversy surrounding the report, the blacklist released in 2017 by Guterres was split into two categories. One lists parties that have implemented measures to protect children and the other includes parties that have not.
The blacklist submitted to the Security Council on Friday named the Saudi-led military coalition and Yemen government forces on the first list, and the Iran-allied Houthi rebel group, pro-Yemen government militia, the Security Belt Forces and Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula on the second list.
The UN report said the Houthis killed and wounded 398 children and Yemeni government forces were responsible for 58 child casualties.
Last year, the report verified that 59 Palestinian children had been killed – 56 by Israeli forces – and another 2,756 wounded, while six Israeli children were wounded. The report found Israeli forces wounded some 2,674 children "in the context of demonstrations, clashes and search and arrest operations."
Guterres urged "Israel to immediately put in place preventive and protective measures to end the excessive use of force" and "all Palestinian actors to refrain from encouraging children's participation in violence."
The annual children and armed conflict report is produced at the request of the UN Security Council.
"In Afghanistan, the number of child casualties remained the highest such number in the present report (3,062) and children accounted for 28% of all civilian casualties. In the Syrian Arab Republic, airstrikes, barrel bombs and cluster munitions resulted in 1,854 child casualties," the report said.
This article was originally published by i24NEWS.
