A new report, published by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, examines Israeli violations and crimes against Palestinian children between October 7, 2023, and March 31, 2026. The report documents the deliberate targeting, killing, and maiming of Palestinian children by Israeli security forces, with at least 20,179 children killed and 44,143 injured in Gaza during this period. The Commission, established by the UN Human Rights Council, investigates violations including torture, sexual violence, attacks on healthcare and educational facilities, and the imposition of conditions of life that have resulted in preventable child mortality.
Methodology and Legal Framework
The Commission applied integrated child rights analysis, consulting multiple sources including open-source verification, remote and in-person interviews, forensic pathology analysis, and medical evidence. The report operates within the legal framework that considers the Occupied Palestinian Territory under belligerent occupation by Israel, to which international humanitarian law and international human rights law concurrently apply. The Commission reaffirms that Israel, as a State party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), is obligated to protect Palestinian children’s rights wherever it exercises effective control.
Physical Harm Against Palestinian Children
Casualties from Explosive Weapons: The report documents that between October 2023 and October 2025, children constituted 30% of those killed and 26% of those injured in Gaza. This represents a significant increase in the proportion of child casualties compared to previous escalations. At least 5,031 children under five were killed, including 1,029 children under age one and 420 newborns. The Commission attributes this to Israel’s use of explosive weapons with wide-area effects in populated areas and an expansion of targeting criteria without adequate precautions.
Continued Killing Post-Ceasefire: Following the October 2025 ceasefire, over 100 children were killed, often near the newly established “yellow line”—an arbitrary demarcation zone where civilians, including children collecting firewood, were shot after unintentionally crossing. The Commission documented the killing of two brothers, aged 10 and 9, by drone strike while gathering firewood, highlighting how the ceasefire has failed to protect children.
Deliberate Targeting: The Commission presents extensive evidence of direct targeting of children through precision weapons. Cases include:
- Hind Rajab (5.5 years) and four other children killed with their family, with two paramedics in an ambulance also targeted
- A 15-year-old boy holding a white flag and his brother shot by snipers in Khan Younis
- A 10-day-old baby shot by quadcopter while being breastfed in a tent
- A four-year-old girl shot in the head while eating in her tent
Medical professionals consistently reported children arriving with single gunshot wounds—indicating precision targeting rather than indiscriminate fire. The Commission documented 168 additional children suffering gunshot wounds, with at least 88 killed, many by quadcopters or snipers.
Weapons Used: The Israeli security forces employed quadcopters with high-resolution cameras enabling operators to clearly see targets before firing, along with sniper rifles such as the DAN .338. These weapons allow precise strikes, making the targeting of children deliberate. The Commission also documented ammunition designed to cause severe internal damage, with pellet weapons fragmenting inside bodies like cluster munitions.
West Bank Violence: Israeli security forces killed 213 Palestinian children in the West Bank, with boys disproportionately targeted—reflecting what the Commission identifies as a gendered security framing linking Palestinian male identity with threat. Large-scale military operations like “Operation Summer Camps” and “Iron Wall” employed airstrikes in densely populated areas. In one incident, a two-year-old girl was shot in the back of the head during dinner at home. Israeli soldiers have expanded open-fire orders to kill anyone “messing with the ground,” which includes children picking up stones.
Settler Violence: Israeli settlers, often with military protection, have intensified attacks on Palestinian children. In the first half of 2025 alone, over 1,000 attacks occurred across 230 communities. Children have been abducted, beaten, tied to trees, and sexually assaulted. These attacks occur during ordinary childhood activities—playing, walking to school, tending farms—turning everyday spaces into sites of fear.
Mistreatment During Arrest and Detention
The Commission documents mass arbitrary arrests of Palestinian children, with over 1,655 children detained in the West Bank. In Gaza, boys aged 12 and above were systematically singled out, separated from families, and treated as adults. Children were held incommunicado, with Israeli authorities denying knowledge of their whereabouts. Conditions in facilities like Sde Teiman involved torture: prolonged forced kneeling, beatings, dogs, electric shocks, food and water deprivation, and denial of medical care. A 17-year-old boy died in Megiddo Prison from starvation, malnutrition, and untreated scabies, despite medical records documenting his deteriorating condition. Released child detainees suffer from severe trauma, with lasting neurological and developmental impacts.
Sexual and Gender-Based Violence
The Commission documents systematic sexual violence against children, including forced public nudity of boys in Gaza—often filmed and photographed by Israeli soldiers and circulated widely. Girls were also subjected to forced stripping in the presence of male soldiers. In detention, children experienced rape, threats of rape, genital beatings, and sexualized torture. These acts are not isolated but systematic, embedded in detention regimes, exploiting children’s unique vulnerabilities to cause profound, irreversible trauma.
Attacks on Healthcare and Newborns
All three major paediatric hospitals in Gaza were forced to close early in the conflict. Al-Nasr Hospital’s NICU was attacked, with decomposing bodies of four premature babies later found still attached to life support machines. Al-Rantisi Hospital, Gaza’s only specialized paediatric hospital, was attacked in September 2025. Attacks on healthcare facilities have severely impacted newborn care: incubator availability dropped from 178 to 54, and neonatal deaths have surged due to hypothermia, lack of oxygen, and inability to maintain body temperature. The Commission found that newborn bed capacity decreased by 50%, denying an estimated 2,500 infants critical care.
Reproductive Violence: The report links Israel’s actions to devastating impacts on reproductive health. Birth rates declined 41% in the first half of 2025 compared to 2022. Miscarriage rates increased by up to 300%. Women are three times more likely to die in childbirth. Premature births and low birthweight infants have surged—33% of births in early 2025 were premature or underweight, compared to 9.5% prior to October 2023. Babies are being born with congenital defects (heart, gastrointestinal, neural tube) due to maternal malnutrition and lack of folic acid. Newborn hypothermia deaths occurred as hospitals lacked incubators and families lacked adequate shelter. The Commission describes this as reproductive violence that undermines the continuity of the Palestinian population.
Attacks on Education
Some 459 of 564 school buildings in Gaza were directly hit, destroying the education system. Over 97% of schools are damaged or destroyed, with children missing three full years of formal education. Israeli soldiers filmed themselves demolishing schools, joking about children’s education. Controlled demolitions destroyed UNRWA schools and university campuses. The cognitive and developmental harm from this educational collapse—children forgetting basic literacy and numeracy—will impact generations. In the West Bank, Israeli authorities ordered the closure of six UNRWA schools in East Jerusalem, affecting 800 students, while settler attacks on schools have forced communities to displace.
Orphan Crisis
An estimated 58,554 children lost one or both parents between October 2023 and October 2025, with 17,000-18,000 children unaccompanied or separated. At least two orphanages were attacked or damaged. Medical staff coined the term “Wounded Child No Surviving Family” (WCNSF) for injured children alone in hospitals—there were 120 such cases at Al-Shifa Hospital by November 2023 alone. The collapse of alternative care systems has pushed children into informal care arrangements, often with strangers.
Impact of Siege and Displacement
The total siege imposed by Israel has had devastating consequences for children. By January 2024, all 1.1 million children in Gaza were food insecure. Nearly 95,000 children were identified with acute malnutrition in 2025. In July 2025 alone, 24 children under five died from malnutrition. The IPC confirmed famine in Gaza Governorate in August 2025, the first in the Middle East region. Children are forced to drink contaminated water, walk long distances to fetch water, and eat animal feed. Outbreaks of disease—diarrhoea, scabies, impetigo, polio (re-emerging after 25 years)—have become endemic. Children’s skin, hair, and teeth show visible signs of malnutrition. Adolescent girls face increased child marriage and early pregnancy as survival strategies.
Mental Harm
Nearly all of Gaza’s 1.2 million children need mental health and psychosocial support. The Commission documents pervasive trauma: emotional dysregulation, hypervigilance, social withdrawal, mutism, suicidal ideation. A survey found 96% of children felt death was imminent. Children display developmental delays, speech problems, and regression. The mental health system has completely collapsed—all six community mental health centres are non-functional, and the only psychiatric hospital was shelled. The Commission identifies this as “continuous traumatic stress” that will create intergenerational trauma, transmitted through epigenetic and behavioural pathways to future generations.
Dehumanization of Palestinian Childhood
Israeli soldiers filmed themselves mocking, weaponizing, and destroying symbols of childhood—dolls with taped eyes, teddy bears hung by their necks, children’s trophies displayed as war prizes. Soldiers tried on girls’ clothing and joked about it, rode children’s toy horses in combat gear, and attached stuffed animals to military vehicles. These acts, filmed and widely disseminated, reflect a military culture of degradation, treating children’s belongings as trophies and symbols of conquest.
Legal Findings
The Commission concludes that Israeli authorities and security forces have committed genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in Gaza, and war crimes in the West Bank.
Genocide: The Commission finds that four categories of genocidal acts have been committed: killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction, and imposing measures intended to prevent births. The targeting of Palestinian children is central to establishing genocidal intent—children embody the biological and social continuity of the group. The Commission emphasizes that the sheer number of documented cases showing a clear pattern of direct targeting constitutes a key element in establishing Israel’s intent to destroy the Palestinian group in Gaza.
Crimes Against Humanity: These include extermination, murder, torture, other inhumane acts, persecution (based on age intersecting with gender, nationality, ethnicity, culture, and religion), and enforced disappearance. The Commission finds that the chapeau elements have been fulfilled: multiple acts directed against a civilian population, widespread or systematic, as part of an attack.
War Crimes: The Commission identifies wilful killing, torture and inhuman treatment, wilfully causing great suffering, intentionally directing attacks against civilians and civilian objects, destruction of property, and outrages upon personal dignity. These violations are documented across Gaza and the West Bank.
Analysis: The Impunity Enabling Atrocities Against Palestinian Children
The Problem of Legal and Political Paralysis
The report’s findings paint a devastating picture of systematic atrocities against Palestinian children, yet the international community has remained largely paralyzed in its response. This paralysis stems from a complex web of geopolitical alliances, legal loopholes, and structural weaknesses in the international accountability system that have effectively immunized Israel from meaningful consequences for its actions.
The Geopolitical Shield: The United States’ unwavering diplomatic and military support for Israel has rendered UN Security Council action largely impossible. Through repeated use of its veto power, the US has blocked multiple ceasefire resolutions and accountability mechanisms. This creates a perverse dynamic where Security Council resolutions condemning Israeli actions can only pass when the US abstains—as seen with Resolution 2728 demanding a ceasefire—but even then, Israel faces no enforcement consequences. The US has continued to provide billions in military aid, including weapons used in Gaza, making it complicit in ongoing violations.
The European Union, despite occasional statements of concern, has failed to impose meaningful sanctions or arms embargoes. Individual European states continue arms sales to Israel while issuing weak diplomatic protests. This creates a pattern where international “condemnation” exists alongside continued enabling—a performative outrage that does nothing to stop the killing of children.
The Flawed International Criminal Justice System: The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Gallant, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. However, the ICC lacks enforcement mechanisms. It relies on state cooperation for arrests, and the US has actively threatened sanctions against the Court. Several European states have signaled they would not arrest Israeli officials even if they traveled to their territories. The Court’s slow pace, resource constraints, and inability to operate in the Occupied Palestinian Territory without Israeli cooperation mean it cannot stop ongoing atrocities or protect victims.
The International Court of Justice issued binding provisional measures in January, March, and May 2024, ordering Israel to prevent genocide and allow humanitarian access. Israel has flagrantly disregarded these orders. The ICJ has no enforcement power—it can only declare violations, relying on the Security Council for enforcement, which is blocked by US veto.
Weaknesses in the Human Rights Framework: UN human rights mechanisms—the Human Rights Council, treaty bodies, Special Rapporteurs—can investigate and report, but lack enforcement powers. Israel has refused cooperation with this Commission, and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child cannot compel compliance. “Naming and shaming” has proven entirely ineffective against a state with powerful allies and a perception of being above international law.
The Arms Trade and Economic Enablers
The international arms trade continues to supply Israel with the weapons used to kill and maim children. States that are parties to the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) are obligated under Article 6 to not authorize arms transfers where they know weapons would be used to commit genocide, crimes against humanity, or war crimes. Yet, states like Germany, the UK, Italy, and the US continue arms transfers to Israel despite overwhelming evidence of such violations.
Civil society groups have challenged these transfers in domestic courts, with some successes—the UK Court of Appeal found UK arms sales to Israel “unlawful” in 2024—but these judgments are often disregarded or appealed, and enforcement mechanisms are weak. The continued flow of F-35 components, artillery shells, and other weaponry demonstrates that economic and strategic interests override legal obligations and child protection.
Financial sanctions against Israeli officials or extremist settlers have been minimal and largely symbolic. The US imposed limited sanctions on a few settlers and their families after international pressure, but these have been inconsistently applied and easily evaded. Wealthy Israeli settlements continue to receive international donations, often channeled through tax-exempt organizations in the US and Europe.
The Failure of Ceasefire and Humanitarian Access
The “ceasefire” established in October 2025, as documented in this report, is not a cessation of hostilities but a restructuring of violence. The “yellow line” creates a kill zone where children continue to be shot. The Commission’s finding that the ceasefire “has effectively solidified Israel’s continuous occupation of Gaza, marked by restricted civilian movement and attacks resulting in casualties, including children” underscores how ceasefires without enforcement mechanisms become tools of perpetuating control.
Humanitarian organizations face systematic obstruction. The Israeli blockade has deliberately weaponized hunger, with the Commission finding that Israel “intentionally used starvation as a method of warfare.” Despite multiple international warnings and famine declarations, humanitarian access remains severely restricted. The banning of 37 international NGOs in 2025 demonstrates active efforts to prevent independent monitoring and assistance.
Medical evacuations remain blocked, with children dying from treatable conditions because they cannot leave Gaza for care. The Commission documents that thousands of critically ill children have been denied approval to leave, even when no local treatment exists. This is a deliberate policy, not bureaucratic failure.
The Structural Problems of Accountability
Command Responsibility and Culture of Impunity: The Commission identifies specific military units responsible for atrocities—the Kfir Brigade, 401st Brigade, 98th Division, Multi-Dimensional Unit 888, Menashe Brigade, among others. Yet no investigations have been opened, and soldiers have faced no consequences. Israeli soldiers openly film themselves committing violations, posting evidence online with confidence that no accountability will follow. The ITVX documentary “Breaking Ranks” revealed soldiers describing deliberate headshots, competition over kill counts, and a culture where commanders encourage violations.
This impunity is structural. Israel’s military legal system investigates itself, with an almost zero conviction rate for misconduct against Palestinians. The General Staff Fact-Finding Assessment Mechanism, described as investigating “exceptional incidents,” has never led to meaningful accountability. Israeli officials have explicitly stated that soldiers “are above this argument and cannot be blamed,” in the words of MK Michal Waldiger.
International Double Standards: The international response to violations in Ukraine versus Palestine illustrates a profound double standard. In Ukraine, sanctions were swift, unified, and substantial. In Palestine, even basic humanitarian measures face opposition. This double standard is not lost on Global South nations, eroding the credibility of the international rule of law and human rights system. It sends a clear message that Western lives—including Western children—matter more than Palestinian children.
What Mechanisms Could Stop the Slaughter?
The report’s recommendations point to potential mechanisms that exist in theory but are currently paralyzed:
- UN Security Council Action: Requires the US to either abstain or support enforcement measures—a political impossibility under current US policy. Even if a resolution passed, enforcement would require either peacekeeping forces or sanctions, both vetoable by permanent members.
- Arms Embargoes: Individual states could unilaterally cease arms sales, but the US supplies most weapons. Domestic legislation like the US Foreign Assistance Act prohibits security assistance to countries committing gross human rights violations, but administrations have consistently waived these provisions for Israel.
- International Criminal Court Prosecution: Relies on arrest and extradition of indicted officials. States like the US have threatened sanctions against the Court, deterring cooperation. The Court cannot operate in Israel without state consent.
- Universal Jurisdiction: States could investigate and prosecute Israeli officials under universal jurisdiction, as some European countries have attempted. However, these cases face political pressure, legal obstacles, and evidential challenges. No senior Israeli official has been convicted.
- Economic Sanctions: BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) campaigns have had some effect, but governments actively suppress such movements. The EU and US have anti-BDS laws, treating boycott campaigns as illegitimate and even illegal.
- ICJ Enforcement: Requires Security Council action to enforce provisional measures. The US veto prevents this.
- Third State Obligations: States party to the Geneva Conventions have obligations to ensure respect for the conventions, including potentially acting against a state committing grave breaches. This has never been invoked successfully against Israel.
The Broader Implications
The failure to protect Palestinian children has profound implications beyond Palestine. It signals the collapse of the international protection regime for children in armed conflict. The convention that every child—everywhere—has certain inviolable rights has been exposed as conditional, dependent on political power. The “responsibility to protect” doctrine, developed to prevent genocide, has proven incapable of functioning when the perpetrator is allied with powerful states.
The systematic targeting of children, the weaponization of hunger, the destruction of healthcare and education systems, the intentional creation of intergenerational trauma—these constitute the essence of genocide. As the Commission finds, these acts are not incidental but central to a strategy to destroy the Palestinian group in Gaza by targeting its future—its children.
The world watches this destruction, documents it in meticulous detail, and does nothing. The 20,179 children killed in Gaza are not just numbers; they represent the impossibility of imagining a Palestinian future. The Commission’s documentation of children’s names, their injuries, their stories, their dying words to mothers on phone calls, their amputations without anesthesia—all this evidence exists. What is lacking is the political will to act.
The mechanisms exist: arms embargoes, sanctions, prosecution, enforcement. What is missing is the collective determination to use them. Until the international community treats the lives of Palestinian children as equal to other children’s lives—until the geopolitical calculations that exempt Israel from accountability are dismantled—the slaughter will continue. This report, like so many before it, documents the crime in meticulous detail. The question remains: will anyone stop it?
Why Israel Kills Children
Israeli actions resulting in child casualties are the result of a nexus of evil: official military policy, operational conduct, and broader societal attitudes.
Tactics and Weapons: The extensive use of explosive weapons with wide-area effects in densely populated civilian areas is cited as a primary factor [citation:1]. This includes the use of heavy munitions, which the report argues do not adequately account for the presence of children [citation:2]. Additionally, the report details the use of advanced weaponry such as drones and quadcopters, which, despite their precision, have been used to target children, sometimes with single, precise shots [citation:3].
Military Directives: The report references statements and testimonies suggesting the military operates with a high degree of permissiveness. This includes a reported policy of firing on anyone “messing with the ground” in the West Bank, and instances where soldiers claim there is a “blanket permission” to target locations or that civilians are often categorized as “terrorists” [citation:4].
Dehumanization and Culture: Public rhetoric by Israeli officials and the conduct of soldiers on the ground (e.g., mocking symbols of childhood) are cited as evidence of a broader culture that dehumanizes Palestinians, which the report argues contributes to a permissive environment for violations against children [citation:5].
Systemic Impunity: The report notes a lack of meaningful investigations or prosecutions for incidents involving child casualties, which is seen as enabling the continuation of such practices [citation:6].
It is important to note that these findings are documented within the specific legal and investigative framework of the UN Commission, which categorizes these acts as potential war crimes and crimes against humanity.
