\n\tDUBAI: Israeli forces killed 54 Palestinian children in the West Bank in 2025, according to a report by Israeli human rights organization B\u2019Tselem, which linked the deaths to an increasingly permissive open-fire policy and military conduct in the occupied territory.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe report also pointed to what it described as a broader dehumanization of Palestinians and a climate of \u201cpublic impunity\u201d surrounding the killings, calling 2025 one of the deadliest years for Palestinian minors in the West Bank over the past two decades.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe widespread killings are not the result of isolated mistakes but of policy,\u201d B\u2019Tselem spokesperson Yair Dvir told Arab News. \u201cThis includes the authorization to shoot at Palestinians suspected of throwing stones even when they pose no danger to soldiers.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIsrael routinely invokes security arguments, labeling those who are killed as terrorists. But we are talking about 54 children killed in a single year, including infants and very young children. Many of these children were killed in their own homes, in their family\u2019s car, on a football pitch, or while on their way to visit a family member. This is not about security.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAccording to B\u2019Tselem, only two of the 54 children and teenagers killed were armed with firearms when they were shot. The organization said that at least 21 were not involved in clashes, while seven were killed in airstrikes.<\/p>\n
\n\tB\u2019Tselem said that it has documented a sharp increase in Palestinian deaths in the West Bank since October 2023. Nearly a quarter of the more than 1,000 Palestinians killed during that period have been children.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe are seeing a growing number of incidents in which soldiers shoot and kill Palestinians who posed no threat to them,\u201d Dvir said. \u201cIn many cases, the killings were captured on camera.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tHe also pointed to public statements by senior Israeli military officials as evidence of what he described as a shift in military conduct.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cNot only does the system provide full backing for these killings, but the military commander responsible for the West Bank has publicly boasted that Israel is killing Palestinians in the West Bank at levels not seen since 1967,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe report is based on investigations conducted by B\u2019Tselem\u2019s Palestinian field researchers across the West Bank. According to the organization, researchers visited the scenes of incidents, collected eyewitness testimony, gathered video footage where available, and conducted detailed investigations into each case.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe organization also raised concerns about delays in medical treatment for wounded minors. According to the report, soldiers delayed or prevented medical teams and residents from reaching injured children in nearly one-quarter of the documented cases.<\/p>\n
\n\tOne such case involved Mohammed Halak from Hebron.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cMohammed was a nine-year-old boy who was playing football with his friends when soldiers entering the village shot him from a hundred meters away, even though he posed no danger whatsoever,\u201d Dvir said. \u201cThe soldiers also delayed his evacuation, causing a delay of more than 15 minutes before he reached the hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tB\u2019Tselem said that Israeli forces have not provided explanations for restricting access to wounded children in such cases. The report also questions the effectiveness of accountability mechanisms surrounding the killings.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIn none of the cases documented in the report has an indictment been filed against those responsible for the killings, including cases involving young children and infants,\u201d Dvir said.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhile some incidents have reportedly been subject to internal military investigations, Dvir argued that such processes rarely lead to \u201cmeaningful\u201d outcomes.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe report also highlights Israel\u2019s policy of withholding the bodies of Palestinians killed by its forces. As of June 2026, Israel was holding the bodies of 18 of the 54 children documented in the report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DUBAI: Israeli forces killed 54 Palestinian children in the West Bank in 2025, according to a report by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":525130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-525129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525129","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=525129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/525130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}