according to<\/a>\u00a0an independent UN commission of inquiry tasked with investigating Israel\u2019s system of oppression as a whole.<\/p>\n\u201cIsrael\u2019s hostilities and violence have eroded the full spectrum of Palestinian children\u2019s rights under \u2026 international law,\u201d according to the three experts behind the report.<\/p>\n
The investigators found that Israeli forces intentionally inflicted conditions of life on children in Gaza \u2013 including deaths \u201cdue to the lack of essential medical care\u201d and deliberate use of lethal force against children \u2013 in acts that amount to war crimes and \u201cthe crime against humanity of extermination.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe killing of and serious bodily and mental harm inflicted upon Palestinian children was part of a strategy to destroy the biological continuity and future existence\u201d of Palestinians in Gaza, they conclude in their 94-page report.<\/p>\n
The harm of Israel\u2019s violence towards children in Gaza will stretch far beyond the duration of its ongoing genocidal campaign, according to the commission.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s targeting of children erodes the foundation of Palestinian society and its \u201cdemographic vitality and overall capacity of the Palestinian people to sustain and exercise its right to determine its future as a people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Israeli forces perpetrated the crime of persecution against Palestinian children, according to the commission.<\/p>\n
Israeli forces deliberately killed children in Gaza using precision weapons and arbitrarily arrested adolescent boys who were systematically labeled as \u201cterrorists,\u201d \u201csuspects\u201d or \u201cfighters\u201d in what also amounts to the crime against humanity of enforced disappearance.<\/p>\n
The abuses against Palestinian children were motivated by their identity as such.<\/p>\n
Palestinian children were collectively punished in retaliation for the events of 7 October 2023, the commission concludes. Detained children were subjected to the crimes against humanity of \u201ctorture and other inhumane acts causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health.\u201d<\/p>\n
The commission previously released its findings on the \u201cphysical and emotional mistreatment\u201d of Israeli children during the attack led by Hamas on 7 October 2023. Forty children were killed in Israel that day and hundreds were injured; some children witnessed the killings of their family members.<\/p>\n
The investigators concluded that \u201cHamas and other Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, including against Israeli children and child hostages.\u201d<\/p>\n
Most dangerous place to be a child<\/p>\n
The scale and rate at which Palestinian children in Gaza were killed and injured is without precedent in modern conflicts worldwide, according to the commission, making the coastal enclave \u201cthe most dangerous place in the world to be a child.\u201d<\/p>\n
Around half of Gaza\u2019s population were children on 7 October 2023. In the two years that followed, at least 20,179 children were killed and another 44,143 injured \u2013 \u201cconstituting 30 percent of those killed and 26 percent of those injured,\u201d according to the report.<\/p>\n
More than 1,000 children had one or more limbs amputated in just the first three months of the Israeli attacks beginning in October 2023. In some cases, children\u2019s limbs were amputated without anesthesia.<\/p>\n
In one case, a 17-year-old girl\u2019s uncle, a doctor, amputated his niece\u2019s leg without anesthesia while their \u201cneighborhood was encircled by Israeli military tanks and vehicles\u201d in December 2023.<\/p>\n
At least 21,000 children in Gaza were made newly disabled between October 2023 and the beginning of September last year.<\/p>\n
More than 5,000 of those killed were under the age of 5. Around 1,000 had not yet reached their first birthday and 420 were newborns.<\/p>\n
The actual number of children killed and injured is even higher than the staggering figures recorded by the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza.<\/p>\n
An estimated 5,160 children\u2019s bodies have not yet recovered from the rubble, according to Save the Children. An unknown number of children were buried in unmarked graves or remain missing.<\/p>\n
The horrifying number of children killed is due to Israel\u2019s indiscriminate and disproportionate targeting of civilian infrastructure, including homes where children would presumably be present. And it is also due to the deliberate targeting of boys and girls with high precision weapons by soldiers who would be able to recognize they were aiming at children.<\/p>\n
The investigators found that child casualties since 7 October 2023 increased \u201cabsolutely and proportionately\u201d in comparison with previous episodes of Israeli aggression in Gaza due to the Israeli military\u2019s \u201cuse of explosive weapons with wide-area effects and an expansion of its targeting criteria.\u201d<\/p>\n
Children are at greater risk of being killed by explosive weapons like those used by Israel to destroy entire neighborhoods due to their \u201cproportionally larger body surface area, pliable bones, smaller limbs and thinner skin.\u201d The younger the child, the more likely they are to be killed by blast injuries, according to the commission.<\/p>\n
Children were deliberately targeted and killed and maimed by Israeli military snipers, operators of armed drones and soldiers in tanks.<\/p>\n
The commission found that the Israeli military\u2019s 401st Brigade deliberately killed Hind Rajab, 5, and her 15-year-old cousin, Layan, along with other members of their family while they attempted to flee their Gaza City neighborhood in January 2024. Two Palestine Red Crescent Society paramedics were killed when attempting to reach the vehicle in which Hind and six members of her family were fired upon by Israeli soldiers who knew there were children inside.<\/p>\n
Israeli soldiers from the military\u2019s 98th Division used precision weapons to hit a 15-year-old child holding a white flag while his family was preparing to evacuate their home in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, the same month that Hind and Layan were killed. After the boy was hit, soldiers fired two more shots, \u201clikely \u2026 to ensure that he was dead.\u201d<\/p>\n
The soldiers shot and killed the boy\u2019s 20-year-old brother and shot and injured their mother and prevented the boys\u2019 father from recovering their bodies. The family was forced to evacuate while the two brothers\u2019 bodies remained in front of their home. The slain brothers\u2019 parents were told that an ambulance crew eventually evacuated the bodies but never learned where their sons were buried.<\/p>\n
The controller of a quadcopter equipped with a sniper rifle fired a single bullet that struck the head of a 10-day-old baby while he was being breastfed by his mother inside a tent in Nuseirat camp in central Gaza in April 2024. The newborn \u201csustained brain injuries and now suffers from seizures,\u201d the commission states.<\/p>\n
That same month, a 4-year-old girl was paralyzed on the left side of her body after she was shot in the head by a quadcopter while she was eating with her family in a tent in Khan Younis, southern Gaza. No one else was injured, leading the commission to conclude that the girl was specifically targeted.<\/p>\n
Shooting kids for competition<\/p>\n
Unit 888 of the Israeli military \u2013 also known as the \u201cRefaim\u201d or Ghost Unit \u2013 operates the advanced quadcopters, which have been described as \u201ca new generation of lethal weapons\u201d by Israeli military personnel in media interviews.<\/p>\n
Some attack quadcopters have been configured to carry ammunition that \u201cbehave in a similar manner to \u2018cluster munitions\u2019 within a human body,\u201d with their pellets fragmenting into submunitions that damage multiple organs.<\/p>\n
Medical practitioners working in Gaza\u2019s hospitals reported to the commission \u201ca consistent pattern of receiving children with single gunshot wounds either by quadcopters or snipers,\u201d suggesting a \u201chigh degree of precision \u2026 indicative of the deliberate targeting of the child victim.\u201d<\/p>\n
One doctor who traveled to Gaza on a medical mission assessed that Israeli soldiers were \u201cdeliberately shooting teenage boys in a game of target practice \u2013 a different body part being targeted on different days.\u201d<\/p>\n
The commission noted that the Israeli newspaper\u00a0Haaretz\u00a0published testimonies from Israeli soldiers who admitted to competing with one another on how many civilians they killed, including children.<\/p>\n
Spaces of care for children were rendered militarized zones throughout Israel\u2019s military offensive in Gaza.<\/p>\n
In October 2024, the Israeli military intentionally and without warning attacked Al-Amal orphanage in Gaza with heavy munitions at night while children were asleep, \u201cresulting in the deaths of children and other civilians and extensive damage to the structure, while surrounding structures were not hit.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo innocent children\u201d<\/p>\n
Israeli officials cast Palestinian children in Gaza as \u201cterrorists,\u201d with the deputy speaker of Israel\u2019s parliament, the Knesset, stating that \u201cevery child born there is already a terrorist, from the moment of his birth.\u201d Another lawmaker stated that babies in the maternity ward of Gaza City\u2019s Al-Shifa Hospital were \u201call born terrorists.\u201d<\/p>\n
Such rhetoric from Israeli officials portraying children as legitimate targets has \u201cfiltered through the Israeli army\u2019s ranks,\u201d the commission states in the report.<\/p>\n
An Israeli policy that casts Palestinian boys as \u201cterrorists\u201d or \u201cfuture terrorists\u201d is reflected in the high number of teenagers killed in the West Bank since October 2023, according to the commission. Israeli forces killed 213 Palestinian children \u2013 seven of them girls \u2013 in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, between 7 October 2023 and 20 October 2025.<\/p>\n
Palestinian children as young as 2 were killed in the West Bank during the period examined in the report. As in Gaza, children in the West Bank were killed in drone strikes as well as by sniper fire.<\/p>\n
In January last year, the Israeli military shot a 10-year-old boy at his father\u2019s home in Tulkarm and detained the ambulance crew that was attempting to evacuate the child. \u201cI am the one who shot your son. God willing, he will die,\u201d one of the soldiers told the boy\u2019s father.<\/p>\n
The child died around a week later.<\/p>\n
The Israeli military claimed that the boy was \u201cmessing with the ground\u201d \u2013 a purported justification for the use of lethal force under the Israeli military\u2019s expanded open-fire regulation apparently intended to target persons planting explosives on roads or picking up stones.<\/p>\n
The commission observes in its report that Israeli soldiers also left children they shot to bleed out without rendering aid and denied Palestinian paramedics access to injured children.<\/p>\n
![\"Children](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/main_image65626_a3upy5mgkz.jpg\" "\\"\\"\/")
Children of Khirbet Umm al-Khair, a village in the Masafer Yatta area in the southern West Bank, protest against the closure of the path leading to their school, which was blocked with barbed-wire fencing by settlers two weeks earlier, 26 April.\u00a0Mosab ShawerActiveStills<\/p>\n
A 14-year-old boy who was shot in al-Faraa refugee camp in the West Bank city of Tubas in November last year threw a cap at soldiers standing by while he was lying on the ground, seemingly to get their attention.<\/p>\n
Instead of providing him with first aid, soldiers placed a stone by him to frame him as a stone-thrower; fired warning shots at the boy\u2019s mother as she attempted to approach her son; and aimed a laser light from a gun at the heads of an ambulance crew trying to reach the site. The boy died and the military confiscated his body.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis incident reflects a broader, recurrent pattern in which Israeli security forces lie to shift responsibility to Palestinian children until contradictory evidence arises and, even then, avoid systematic accountability by attributing incidents to individual error,\u201d the commission states \u2013 echoing its previous findings in relation to the conduct of the Israeli military Gaza.<\/p>\n
Of the 19 Palestinians killed by Israeli settlers in the West Bank between 7 October 2023 and 30 September 2025, two were children. Another boy was killed either by settlers or soldiers.<\/p>\n
The commission states that it found a pattern of settlers targeting children engaged in ordinary activities, \u201cturning everyday spaces into sites of fear\u201d to the point of forcing the closure of schools and relocation of communities.<\/p>\n
\u201cSettlers forcibly seized children, dragging or forcing them to isolated spots \u2026 and immobilizing them with ropes or ties, to exercise control and induce terror,\u201d according to the report. \u201cThe attacks have instrumentalized children as part of a broader coercive strategy to drive Palestinians off their land.\u201d<\/p>\n
The commission concludes that \u201csettler violence functions not as a deviation from state policy but as a means of implementing it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth the state of Israel and violent settler groups share and collaborate in the same strategic objectives: the entrenchment of Israeli settlement on Palestinian land, annexation of Palestinian territory and the displacement of Palestinian people from their land.\u201d<\/p>\n
Children\u2019s hospitals targeted<\/p>\n
The Israeli military directly attacked Gaza\u2019s three major pediatric hospitals, forcing each to close in the first two months of the onslaught.<\/p>\n
Al-Nasr hospital was attacked at least three times in November 2023, cutting off the electricity supply and causing one baby to die from lack of oxygen. Snipers shot at staff, making it impossible to evacuate, while also \u201crefusing to allow the hospital to transfer pediatric and neonatal patients\u201d before allowing two pediatric hospitals, including Al-Nasr, half an hour to evacuate on 10 November 2023.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt least four premature babies dependent on life-support equipment could not be safely moved due to lack of portable oxygen and ongoing fire,\u201d the commission states. Around two weeks later, during a pause in fighting, the decomposing bodies of the premature babies were found still attached to the life support machines that were cut off from electricity during the attack.<\/p>\n
The Israeli military \u201cdid not claim that Al-Nasr Pediatric Hospital was used by Hamas,\u201d the commission observes.<\/p>\n
Nine children were among 15 civilians killed and 19 children were among at least 30 people injured when an Israeli airstrike hit people waiting in line for nutritional supplements for children at a health clinic in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, in July 2025.<\/p>\n
The Israeli military \u201creportedly said that they were targeting a Hamas militant but did not identify the person,\u201d the commission states. The attack forced the suspension of nutrition supplement distribution at the clinic.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s targeting of healthcare facilities and its ongoing blockade, preventing or severely limiting the entry of essential medicines, supplies and equipment, means that \u201cchildren injured in Gaza will suffer well into their adulthood.\u201d<\/p>\n
Infants will not meet developmental milestones in their first year. Speech and language milestones will be delayed and children\u2019s \u201ccognitive abilities could be impaired in the long-term,\u201d the commission states.<\/p>\n
\u201cA doctor summarized the situation by saying that the essence of childhood has been destroyed in Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, \u201cfatigue, physical exhaustion and elevated stress levels\u201d have harmed maternal health, causing rates of miscarriage and death during childbirth as well as the prevalence of babies born prematurely and with low birthrate to spike.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoctors have reported no longer seeing \u2018normal-sized\u2019 babies in Gaza,\u201d according to the commission, while babies born needing corrective surgery have been deprioritized due to the large number of children with traumatic injuries, \u201cleading to avoidable death within the first days after birth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Education destroyed<\/p>\n
Children in Gaza have been deprived of a formal education for nearly three years due to Israel\u2019s attacks and mass forced displacement. Gaza\u2019s schools and universities have been damaged and destroyed \u2013 Israeli soldiers have recorded videos of them celebrating during the controlled demolition of education facilities.<\/p>\n
Before October 2023, \u201cGaza had historically maintained one of the highest literacy rates in the world.\u201d Children living there today have been forced to focus on surviving rather than learning.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe destruction of Gaza\u2019s education system is expected to harm Palestinians for generations to come,\u201d the commission states.<\/p>\n
\u201cLoss of human capital, combined with the physical destruction of infrastructure, has led to a projected setback of 69 years in Gaza\u2019s human development index and has created a potential \u2018brain drain\u2019 by denying young generations access to education.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/main_image66251_zjzbe8bdn4.jpeg\" "\\"\\"\/")
Yasser Arafat, 6, is treated at Nasser Medical Complex after he contracted severe skin infections, compounded by severe malnutrition, and experienced severe swelling throughout his body, 12 May.\u00a0He has celiac disease, which caused his condition to deteriorate rapidly. His younger brother Musa died four months prior\u00a0from the same conditions.\u00a0Doaa AlbazActiveStills<\/p>\n
High rates of acute malnutrition \u2013 resulting in the first confirmed case of famine in the Middle East \u2013 due to Israel\u2019s siege, deplorable living conditions for displaced families and lack of access to dental care will negatively impact the health of Gaza\u2019s surviving children for the rest of their lives.<\/p>\n
Children\u2019s immune systems have been compromised by starvation and malnourishment, \u201cseverely impairing children\u2019s ability to heal when sick or injured and contributing to the death of pediatric patients,\u201d according to the commission.<\/p>\n
\u201cChildren just did not recover,\u201d a doctor who visited Gaza on multiple medical missions told the commission.<\/p>\n
Children in Gaza are exposed to \u201cchronic and unrelenting\u201d trauma that experts estimate will result \u201cin psychological and epigenetic transmission of this trauma affecting future generations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boys and girls in Gaza are preoccupied with \u201cdeath and dying, with suicidal thoughts being common among children,\u201d the report states.<\/p>\n
The rates of child marriage in Gaza have risen sharply as families resort to the practice \u201cas a survival strategy.\u201d Nearly a quarter of families surveyed in June 2024 reported that a child under the age of 16 was heading their family\u2019s household.<\/p>\n
Children detained and tortured<\/p>\n
Children from the West Bank and Gaza alike were mistreated while being detained and arrested by the Israeli military after 7 October 2023, the commission found.<\/p>\n
The Israeli military \u201csystematically and intentionally\u201d singled out boys aged 12 and older during mass arrests. The number of children from Gaza who have been detained remains unknown as Israel has not \u201cdisclosed the data nor the whereabouts of the arrested children.\u201d<\/p>\n
A 15-year-old boy was detained during mass arrests in Gaza in December 2023 testified to being \u201crepeatedly interrogated and tortured,\u201d including through electrocution, and \u201cdeprived of food and water and forced into painful positions for up to 12 hours at a time\u201d over a period of 54 days, the report states. After he was released at Karem Shalom crossing, the boy was \u201ctaken by an aid agency to a school where he stayed without his family, fearful, hungry and cold.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than 1,650 Palestinian children have been detained in the West Bank since 7 October 2023, many of them held without charge or trial under administrative detention orders.<\/p>\n
Children from the West Bank who were held in Israel Prison Service facilities were subjected to violence and denied medical care and medicine, as well as food and water restrictions. Physicians for Human Rights-Israel said that the food and water restrictions may amount to starvation, the commission states.<\/p>\n
A 17-year-old boy who was healthy and fit when he was arrested in September 2024 died in March the following year. The teen likely died from starvation and dehydration after being deprived of food and water, with his mistreatment \u201camounting to the war crimes of torture, inhuman treatment and willful killing,\u201d the commission states.<\/p>\n
Detained Palestinian children are routinely strip-searched upon arrival to Israel\u2019s prison system and \u201cthroughout custody,\u201d according to testimonies of children received by the commission.<\/p>\n
Children reported being recorded by guards while being beaten during transport. Other documented abuses include \u201cbeing held naked, threats of sexual abuse and abuse of a sexual nature, as well as placement in solitary confinement,\u201d the report states.<\/p>\n
Released child detainees from Gaza \u201cdescribe being stripped, forced to remain naked or in diapers and subjected to genital beatings and other forms of sexualized torture carried out in front of other prisoners as a method of humiliation and domination.\u201d<\/p>\n
The commission concludes that sexual and gender-based violence against Palestinian children in Israeli detention \u201cis not exceptional but a systematic, state-enabled assault on their bodies and their dignity and deliberately meted out to cause humiliation.\u201d<\/p>\n
UN investigators also observe in their report that the transfer of detainees outside occupied territory \u2013 such as Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem \u2013 \u201camounts to deportation, which is a crime against humanity and a war crime.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Maureen Clare Murphy is senior editor of The Electronic Intifada.<\/p>\n
Originally published in Electronic Intifada<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The bodies of twin 9-year-old brothers Moaz and Moataz, who were killed in Israeli airstrikes that killed at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":525996,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-525995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525995","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=525995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/525996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Gaza-Dead-Children.jpg\")
The bodies of twin 9-year-old brothers Moaz and Moataz, who were killed in Israeli airstrikes that killed at least 60 civilians overnight, are carried at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on 15 May 2025. (Doaa Albaz\/ActiveStills)<\/p>\n