Israeli envoy and UN official clash at hearing on children in conflict

June 19 - Diplomatic niceties broke down at the United Nations on Friday when Israel's ambassador and the U.N. secretary-general's special representative for children and armed conflict became embroiled in a furious shouting match at a public hearing.

At a meeting in New York to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict, the Israeli envoy, Danny Danon, demanded the resignation of Pramila Patten, who produced a report that blacklisted Israel for such alleged abuses for the first time, accusing her of bias.

"You caved to the secretary-general's obsession with targeting Israel," Danon said, referring to U.N. chief Antonio Guterres.

Another U.N. official, Vanessa Frazier, Guterres' representative for children and armed conflict and compiler of a separate report that also blacklists Israel, interjected by shouting a point of order. She demanded that Danon refrain from "personal attacks" and added that she had "verified evidence."

Danon said Frazier should be quiet.

"We are a member state, and you work for the U.N., and you will be quiet now. You will be quiet ... you and your shameful report," he said.

Frazier, Malta's former U.N. ambassador, issued her report this week on behalf of Guterres warning that Israeli settler groups could be added to a global blacklist for violations against children as the U.N. chief voiced alarm at what he called a "staggering" rise in violations against Palestinian children.

Israel itself already features in that report's so-called list of shame annexes for alleged violations.

When Patten's report was issued last month, Danon called it "a new low" and Israel's foreign ministry vowed to sever all ties with Guterres, who leaves office after 10 years at the year-end.

Both reports also blacklist Israel's arch enemy Hamas. REUTERS