The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel has issued a new report asserting that Israeli authorities and security forces have intentionally targeted Palestinian children. The commission concludes that these actions amount to genocide in the Gaza Strip and war crimes in the West Bank.
Commission Chair Srinivasan Muralidhar stated that the evidence demonstrates deliberate killings of Palestinian children by Israeli security forces. The report addresses the period following the Hamas attacks on Israel in late 2023, which resulted in approximately 1,200 deaths and 250 hostages taken. It further addresses Israel’s subsequent military operations in Gaza, which the commission states have caused more than 70,000 Palestinian deaths in the besieged territory to date.
Even after the October 2025 ceasefire, the commission reports that children continue to be killed and seriously injured, alleging ongoing disregard by Israel for the ceasefire terms and for the protections owed to Palestinian children under international law.
Previous Conclusions and Scale of Harm
In its findings from the previous year, the commission determined that Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. It described the intense scale and systematic nature of Israeli military operations as having produced unprecedented levels of death, injury, and trauma among Palestinian children.
The latest report details several specific findings. It states that Israel has killed 20,000 children and injured 44,000 more since 7 October 2023. Severe physical and mental injuries, mass trauma, orphanhood, family separation, disability, repeated displacements, starvation, and the collapse of education and healthcare systems are said to have erased childhood for many and to continue affecting children in Gaza throughout their lives.
The commission further alleges that Palestinian children have been arrested and subjected to torture and other severe mistreatment in Israeli prisons and detention facilities, often with no information provided on their whereabouts. It also claims that Israeli security forces have employed sexual violence against children as part of collective shaming and oppression, describing this as embedded within a prolonged pattern of occupation and hostilities that encompasses ethnic, gendered, and intergenerational elements.
Testimonies and Specific Incidents
The report, titled “The essence of childhood has been destroyed”: Israel’s deliberate targeting of Palestinian children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 7 October 2023, contains detailed accounts of alleged deliberate targeting and killing.
At a press conference in Geneva, Commissioner Chris Sidoti stated that the report leaves no doubt that every international legal norm has been violated by Israeli authorities toward Palestinian children and that accountability is required. He cited one case in which a 14-year-old boy was shot by an Israeli military patrol as he left his house. According to the account, no fighting was occurring in the area at the time. The boy was shot, badly injured, and left lying on the ground. He was surrounded by a company of Israeli soldiers who reportedly chatted and smoked over a period of 45 minutes while the boy bled to death.
Infrastructure Destruction, Starvation, and Long-Term Impacts
The commission highlights the widespread devastation of critical infrastructure serving children. It alleges that Israel’s targeting of neonatal and maternity care centres in Gaza has directly harmed newborn survival and Palestinians’ reproductive future. Starvation imposed through blockade and siege is said to have caused additional deaths of Palestinian children and severely affected the health of many others.
The dismantling and destruction of orphanages and education facilities in Gaza and the West Bank are reported to have obstructed cognitive, social, and emotional care and development, while disrupting the foundations of Palestinian society.
Palestinian children are described as having suffered immense psychological harm, stripped of any sense of safety and future. The commission characterises this mental harm as an intergenerational condition that produces a distinctive “occupied psyche,” in which the freedom to play, imagine, hope, and develop an identity has been eroded.
Chair Muralidhar stated that even if bombs and guns fall silent in Gaza and the West Bank, Palestinian children will not simply recover overnight. He described the destruction of their health, education, and development as irreversible. By targeting children, the commission argues, Israel is eroding the foundational structure of Palestinian society, weakening demographic vitality and the overall capacity of the Palestinian people to sustain and exercise their right to self-determination.
The protection, care, and survival of Palestinian children are presented as inseparable from the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination. Targeting children, the commission states, attacks the very capacity of the Palestinian people to exist and to determine their future.
Recommendations and Calls for Accountability
In its latest report, the commission calls on Israel to cease committing violations and crimes against and affecting Palestinian children. It further calls for an end to Israel’s continuing presence in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in compliance with the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice.
Having identified military units within the Israeli security forces responsible for the killing and injuring of Palestinian children, the commission issued recommendations to Israel and to all United Nations Member States to ensure accountability for such crimes.
The commission stated that the international community as a whole must uphold its international legal obligations, call for an end to the hostilities, require Israel to end its occupation, and prioritise accountability and access to justice for victims as an integral component of any political process. Such a process, it emphasised, must be grounded in the meaningful participation of Palestinians, including children.
The commission was established in 2021 by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate all alleged violations of international humanitarian law and all alleged violations and abuses of international human rights law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel, leading up to and since 13 April 2021.
