UN inquiry: Israel deliberately targeting Palestinian children in genocide, war crimes

Israeli authorities and security forces deliberately targeted Palestinian children, resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in Gaza, and war crimes in the occupied West Bank, an independent UN inquiry said in a new report released today.

The report found that Israel has targeted Palestinian children in Gaza in two distinct ways:

1. directly by shooting at their vital organs using precision weapons such as quadcopters and snipers; and
2. through the use of high-impact weapons, causing widespread and systematic attacks on residential buildings, schools, and displacement camps crowded with children.

It also found that killing continued even after the October 2025 ceasefire:

After October 2025, children continued being killed and injured in various circumstances, including when approaching the so-called ‘yellow line’, indicating Israel’s flagrant disregard of the terms of the ceasefire.

The vague markings, absence of clear warnings, and lack of safe corridors have turned the area into a death trap, particularly for children.

Egregiously, the ‘ceasefire’ has effectively solidified Israel’s continuous occupation of Gaza, marked by restricted civilian movement and attacks resulting in casualties, including children.

The report by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel examined violations against Palestinian children since October 2023.

Between 7 October 2023 and 7 October 2025, at least 20,179 children were killed, and 44,143 children were injured by Israel in Gaza, constituting 30 percent of those killed and 26 per cent of those injured during this period.

Lifetime of disability

Israel’s genocide of Palestinian children had created:

a new generation of Palestinian children who will now face a lifetime of disability that will shape their sense of autonomy and agency over their own future.

As Gaza’s healthcare system collapsed, injured children have undergone procedures in overstretched or damaged facilities, often without anaesthesia, sterile conditions, or postoperative care, leading to lifelong harm and increased mortality.

The harming of Gazans’ reproductive capacity and the denial of reproductive health care have inflicted grave, disproportionate, and long-term harms on pregnant women and newborns and future generations.

The report also noted the re-emergence of diseases like polio, due to Israel’s use of starvation as a method of war.

Severe orphan crisis

The report lambasted Israeli security forces for orphaning thousands of Palestinian children in Gaza. It added that at least two orphanages in Gaza had been damaged through direct and indirect attacks by Israel.

Between 7 October 2023 and 7 October 2025, an estimated 58,554 children lost one or both parents, and between 17,000 and 18,000 children were unaccompanied or separated from their parents.

Sexual and gender-based violence targeting Palestinian children

Israeli security forces also used sexual violence as a tactic of war to punish and instil fear in Palestinians, including children, the report found. It said:

Palestinian children have been arrested and subjected to torture and other severe forms of mistreatment in Israeli prisons and detention facilities, with no information on their whereabouts.

A sombre indictment of Israel’s genocide, the report concludes that, by targeting children, Israel is attacking the very capacity of the Palestinian people to exist and to determine their future.

Featured image via the Canary