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UNITED NATIONS \u2014 In an upcoming report to the U.N. Security Council, the secretary-general of the world body plans to list both Israel and Hamas as waging a war<\/a> that violates the rights and protection of children.<\/p>\n The preface of last year\u2019s report says it lists parties engaged in \u201cthe killing and maiming of children, rape and other forms of sexual violence perpetrated against children, attacks on schools, hospitals and protected persons.\u201d<\/p>\n The head of Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres\u2019 office called Israel\u2019s U.N. ambassador, Gilad Erdan<\/a><\/span><\/span>, on Friday to inform him that Israel would be in the report when it is sent to the council next week, U.N. spokesperson St\u00e9phane Dujarric told reporters.<\/p>\n Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad also will be listed.<\/p>\n Israel reacted with outrage, sending news organizations a video of Erdan berating the head of Guterres\u2019 office, supposedly on the other end of a phone call.<\/p>\n \u201cHamas will continue even more to use schools and hospitals because this shameful decision of the Secretary-General will only give Hamas hope to survive and extend the war and extend the suffering,\u201d Erdan wrote in a statement. \u201cShame on him!\u201d<\/p>\n The move heightened a long-running feud between Israel and the U.N.<\/a>, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying, \u201cThe UN put itself on the black list of history today.\u201d<\/p>\n Condemnation of the secretary-general\u2019s decision appeared to bring together Israel\u2019s increasingly fractious leadership \u2014 from the right-wing Netanyahu and Erdan to the popular centrist member of the War Cabinet, Benny Gantz.<\/p>\n Gantz cited Israel\u2019s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, as saying \u201cit matter not what say the goyim (non-Jews), what is important is what do the Jews.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the Palestinian U.N. ambassador said that adding Israel to the \u201c\u2018list of shame,\u2019 will not bring back tens of thousands of our children who were killed by Israel over decades.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut it is an important step in the right direction,\u201d Riyad Mansour wrote in a statement.<\/p>\n Israel faces heavy international criticism<\/a> over civilian casualties in Gaza and questions about whether it has done enough to prevent them in an eight-month-old war. Two recent airstrikes<\/a> in Gaza killed dozens of civilians.<\/p>\n U.N. agencies warned Wednesday that over 1 million Palestinians in Gaza could experience the highest level of starvation by the middle of next month if hostilities continue.<\/p>\n The World Food Program and the Food and Agriculture Organization said in a joint report that hunger is worsening because of heavy restrictions on humanitarian access and the collapse of the local food system in the eight-month Israel-Hamas war<\/a>.<\/p>\n The proportion of Palestinian women and children being killed in the Israel-Hamas war<\/a> appears to have declined sharply, an Associated Press analysis of Gaza Health Ministry data has found, a trend that both coincides with Israel\u2019s changing battlefield tactics and contradicts the ministry\u2019s own public statements.<\/p>\n The trend is significant because the death rate for women and children is the best available proxy for civilian casualties in one of the 21st century\u2019s most destructive conflicts<\/a>. In October, when the war began, it was above 60 percent. For the month of April, it was below 40 percent.<\/p>\n Yet the shift went unnoticed for months by the U.N. and much of the media, and the Hamas-linked Health Ministry has made no effort to set the record straight.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n