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UNITED NATIONS — <\/span>Nearly 25,000 children caught in conflict were victims of a record number of violations last year, including killings, rape and recruitment to fight, and for the first time, government forces \u2014 not armed groups \u2014 were the main perpetrators, a new United Nations report says.<\/p>\n Secretary-General Antonio Guterres\u2019 annual report, released this week, has a blacklist of violators against children: government forces from eight nations and 67 armed groups from 16 countries and territories.<\/p>\n The number of violations \u2014 which also include abductions, attacks on schools and hospitals, and denial of humanitarian access to help them \u2014 rose for a fourth straight year to 38,558, according to the report that is based on verified U.N. data. It said 24,174 children, a third of them girls, were affected, with several thousand subjected to multiple violations.<\/p>\n \u201cThe scale and persistence of these violations demand more than acknowledgment \u2014 they demand resolve,\u201d the U.N. special representative for children in armed conflict, Vanessa Frazier, said in an analysis of the report.<\/p>\n She urged the 193 U.N. member nations to confront the findings and \u201crecognize that protecting children is not an aspiration but an obligation, and that the decisions taken today will shape the futures they may or may not live to claim.\u201d<\/p>\n For the first time since the U.N. authorized monitoring of abuses against children in conflict 30 years ago, the report said that \u201cgovernment forces were responsible for a majority of grave violations.\u201d<\/p>\n Topping the 2025 list are the Israeli military and its security forces<\/a>, with 12,445 violations. That is followed by Congo, with 4,114 violations, and Myanmar, Somalia and armed groups in Nigeria, all with over 2,000 violations. Government forces from Sudan, South Sudan, Syria and Russia’s armed forces in Ukraine<\/a> are also on the blacklist. <\/p>\n The report says government forces also were \u201cthe main perpetrators\u201d of 6,266 killings of children \u2014 a 34% increase from last year \u2014 as well as 7,958 injuries.<\/p>\n The U.N. said it verified the killing of 2,668 Palestinian children<\/a> by Israeli forces in Gaza and 55 Palestinian kids in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. The U.N. received reports of the killing of an additional 4,588 children in Gaza and injuries to 346 Israeli children that it is in the process of verifying, the report said.<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s U.N. Mission did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n Guterres said he was \u201cappalled by the magnitude of grave violations against children\u201d in Palestinian territories and Israel, \u201cgravely alarmed by the staggering increase in grave violations\u201d perpetrated by Israeli forces, and \u201cdeeply alarmed at the staggering rise in attacks carried out by Israeli settlers\u201d affecting children with no accountability.<\/p>\n The U.N. chief urged Israel to develop and sign a plan with the United Nations to end the killing and maiming of children and attacks on schools and hospitals with time-bound commitments.<\/p>\n Frazier, the special representative for children in conflict, told reporters Thursday that there are a number of reasons government forces were responsible for more violations this year. That includes \u201cthe impunity that we are seeing towards international law\u201d and changes in warfare from battlefields to densely populated places using new weapons like drones and explosives that cover a wide area, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cChildren were impacted while escaping fighting, seeking food, water or medical care, and navigating areas heavily contaminated by explosive remnants of war, often contributing to life-long disabilities,\u201d she said in the analysis of the report.<\/p>\n The U.N. said it verified the recruitment and use of 6,607 children in conflict, with the highest numbers in Congo, Nigeria, Haiti, Somalia and Colombia. It said 5,129 youngsters were abducted, mainly in Nigeria<\/a>, Congo, Somalia, Myanmar and Mozambique.<\/p>\n And it reported 1,783 child victims of rape and sexual violence, with the highest number in Congo<\/a>, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan and Haiti.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n