Lina Altawell<\/p>\n
29 June 2026\u2022Update: 29 June 2026<\/p>\n
Children account for nearly a quarter of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank since October 2023, the highest death rate of minors since Israel\u2019s occupation of the territory in 1967, Israeli rights group B\u2019Tselem said on Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe widespread, unprecedented killing of Palestinian children and teenagers in the West Bank is the result of a broader Israeli policy that enables the killing of Palestinians with virtually no accountability,\u201d B\u2019Tselem Executive Director Yuli Novak said in a report.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the military commander of the area boasts that Israel is killing Palestinians \u2018like we haven\u2019t killed since 1967,\u2019 he is confirming exactly that: the system does not merely back those who pull the trigger \u2014 it effectively grants them a license to kill,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The group said that 241 children and teenagers were among 1,086 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank since October 2023.<\/p>\n
According to the rights group, 54 Palestinian children were killed in the West Bank last year, and in nearly one-quarter of these cases, Israeli forces delayed or prevented medical teams or local residents from reaching wounded children and teenagers to provide life-saving assistance.<\/p>\n
Israel is also still withholding the bodies of 18 of the 54 children and teenagers killed in 2025, it added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe killing of Palestinian children and teenagers in the West Bank is not the result of isolated mistakes or violations of military orders,\u201d B\u2019Tselem said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is the outcome of an Israeli policy that expands the circumstances in which soldiers are permitted to shoot and kill, including children; backs those who use lethal force; labels Palestinians killed as \u2018terrorists\u2019 even when they posed no threat to anyone; and almost never holds the perpetrators to account.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rights group noted that \u201cno single indictment\u201d had been filed in connection with the killing of Palestinians in the West Bank since October 2023, including cases in which the victims were children and teenagers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe killings in the West Bank cannot be separated from Israel’s killing of more than 21,000 Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip,\u201d B\u2019Tselem said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy allowing Israel to kill on such a scale in Gaza without consequences, the international community has effectively given it a green light to pursue the same lethal policy in the West Bank.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since October 2023, the Israeli army has killed more than 73,000 people and injured over 173,000 others in a brutal war on Gaza that has caused widespread destruction affecting 90% of civilian infrastructure.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs long as Israel continues to enjoy near-total impunity in the world, the lives of Palestinians \u2013 including children \u2013 will remain unprotected and exposed,\u201d B\u2019Tselem said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lina Altawell 29 June 2026\u2022Update: 29 June 2026 Children account for nearly a quarter of Palestinians killed by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516688,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43,180804],"class_list":["post-516687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-sitekeywords"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}