Israel deliberately targeted Palestinian children in Gaza, as determined in the UN’s new study by its Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. At its core, “serious physical and psychological attacks by the Israeli security forces since 7 October 2023,” including the so-called ‘ceasefire’ period, resulted “in the death of at least 20,179 and injury of 44,143 children. This pattern is now taking hold in the West Bank. The summary to the 96-page report, titled “The essence of children has been destroyed,” states:
“The Commission examines the use of torture, inhumane and degrading treatment, including sexual and gender-based violence, against Palestinian children, particularly during mass arrests and in detention. It analyzes pattern of Israel’s targeting of critical infrastructure essential to children, such as healthcare facilities and its short- to long-term consequences, as well as the impact of reproductive violence on newborns, resulting in poor neonatal health and birthing outcomes; attacks on orphanages and schools...” It examines “the impact of the conditions of life imposed by Israel in Gaza resulting in preventable mortality of children, exacerbating morbidity, and serious mental trauma from the relentless and widespread attacks by Israel over two years...”
Consortium News highlighted elements of the report:
“About 30 percent of those killed by Israel in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, have been children...” Over a quarter of the children killed “were under the age of 5,” with over a fifth of those under the age of one. The report stated: “The deliberate targeting of children is one of the key elements establishing genocidal intent of the Israeli authorities and security forces to destroy the Palestinian group, in whole or in part, in Gaza.”
There were documented instances where “Israeli forces directly fired upon children, with medical professionals testifying that they treated kids with ‘direct gunshot and sniper wounds, often to the head and abdomen'... One sample of 168 children killed by gunshots found that 73 were shot in the head and 22 were shot in the chest, which the commission argued was evidence of intentionality.”
Prior to Israel’s counterattack on Gaza, a deputy Knesset speaker, Nissim Vaturi, instructed the IDF: “Erase Gaza... Do not leave a child there. Expel all the remaining ones at the end.” Later, in January 2025, he justified the actions, saying: “Gaza is full of terrorists and every child born there is already a terrorist, from the moment of his birth.” Similarly, Knesset Member Amit Halevi stated that the hundreds of babies in Al-Shifa hospital’s maternity ward were “all born terrorists.”
It hasn’t stopped. In the first three months of the ‘ceasefire,’ more than 100 children were killed in Gaza, with many more wounded. In the West Bank, more than 200 children have been killed since Oct 7, 2023.
