From the United Nations
18 June 2026
“The essence of childhood has been destroyed”: Israel’s deliberate targeting of Palestinian children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 7 October 2023
Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel
https://undocs.org/en/A/HRC/62/CRP.2 — English
https://undocs.org/fr/A/HRC/62/CRP.2 — French
https://undocs.org/ar/A/HRC/62/CRP.2 — Arabic
https://undocs.org/zh/A/HRC/62/CRP.2 — Chinese
https://undocs.org/ru/A/HRC/62/CRP.2 — Russian
https://undocs.org/es/A/HRC/62/CRP.2 — Spanish
[emphasis added]
Summary:
The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel examines violations and crimes against and affecting Palestinian children, including serious physical and psychological harm by the Israeli security forces since 7 October 2023 resulting in the death of at least 20,179 and injury of 44,143 children.
The paper describes the deliberate targeting and killing of Palestinian children, including post-ceasefire since the October 2025 Gaza peace plan. The Commission also examines a sharp increase in violence perpetrated by members of Israeli settlers against Palestinian children in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
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 analyses 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, impacting the loss of care for orphans and unaccompanied children, and inducing academic harm and learning disruptions for children, respectively.
The Commission 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 – collectively revealing severe, multi-layered harm to Palestinian children’s survival, health, and development. Further, the Commission examines how Israeli soldiers mock and weaponize symbols of childhood in Gaza, raising ethical, disciplinary and legal questions about the conduct of the Israeli security forces during the ground invasion of Gaza.
Lastly, the Commission provides recommendations to diverse stakeholders for the cessation of attacks, reparations, accountability and international enforcement of sanctions – aimed at advancing child-responsive justice.
I. Introduction
1. This Conference Room Paper (CRP) of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel (the Commission) examines Israeli violations and crimes against Palestinian children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as well as their short- to long-term impact on children, between 7 October 2023 and 31 March 2026. The Commission has published four mandated reports and four conference room papers since 7 October 2023.
2. This report presents the Commission’s new and expanded findings on the intentional targeting, arrests and ill-treatment, sexual and gender-based violence, attacks on educational facilities and healthcare, and the conditions imposed in the Occupied Palestinian Territory which directly affect children. For the purpose of this report, a ‘child’ means “every human being below the age of 18 years”, consistent with article 1 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).
3. Since 7 October 2023, the Commission has sent 13 requests for information and/or access to the Government of Israel, four requests for information to the State of Palestine and one request for information to the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip. The State of Palestine and the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip provided information to the Commission. No responses were received from the Government of Israel.
4. The Commission’s comprehensive findings on violations and abuses against Israeli children committed by the military wing of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups on and since 7 October 2023 were presented in its reports to the Human Rights Council in June 2024 and to the General Assembly in October 2024, as well as in a separate conference room paper published in June 2024.
5. In these reports, the Commission found that Israeli children were subjected to physical and emotional mistreatment on 7 October 2023. In addition to the 40 children who were killed and hundreds injured, many children lost one or both parents. Many children witnessed the killings of their parents and siblings and were also filmed for propaganda purposes by Palestinian armed groups who published videos depicting Israeli children in vulnerable positions while they were under the control of the armed elements. The Commission finds it particularly egregious that children were targeted for abduction, several of them taken alone. The Commission concluded that Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, including against Israeli children and child hostages.
…
VIII. Conclusions
352. As an occupying power, Israel is legally bound to ensure the protection, care and survival of Palestinian children. However, through the nature, scale and extent of Israel’s military operations in Gaza, the Israeli government and security forces have deliberately carried out acts inflicting death and severe bodily and mental harm on hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children, irreparably destroying the sanctity of childhood, including family ties, identity, innocence, safety and future. The Commission found that much of the harm suffered by Palestinian children was not incidental but intended to destroy the existence of the Palestinians in Gaza as a group. Since children embody the biological and social continuity of the group, the Commission has reasonable grounds to conclude that these acts form part of a deliberate strategy to destroy the future of the Palestinians in Gaza by targeting their children.
353. The protection, care, and survival of Palestinian children and pregnant women, are inextricably linked to the Palestinian people’s fundamental right to selfdetermination, as children represent the future bearers of their collective identity and resilience. By targeting children, Israel is eroding the foundational structure of Palestinian society, weakening the demographic vitality, and overall capacity of the Palestinian people to sustain and exercise its right to determine its future as a people.
354. Israel has targeted Palestinian children in Gaza in two distinct ways: directly by shooting at their vital organs using precision weapons such as quadcopters and snipers; and through use of high impact weapons causing widespread and systematic attacks on residential buildings, schools, and displacement camps crowded with children. Israel is also legally responsible for failing to protect Palestinian children from being targeted by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and for allowing, enabling and encouraging ongoing settler violence, which serves to entrench settlements, annex Palestinian land and force Palestinians off their land.
355. The killings 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 Commission maintains that a ceasefire that allows Israeli security forces to open fire on children crossing an ill-defined boundary cannot credibly be seen as a cessation of hostilities. 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.
356. Based on its own investigations and documentation, the Commission has concluded on reasonable grounds that following divisions, brigades or units of the Israeli security forces may be responsible for the killing and injuring of Palestinian children in Gaza and the West Bank in the following incidents:
(a) Kfir Brigade for drone strikes and killing two brothers, aged 10 and nine, near Bani Suheila, east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza on 29 November 2025.
(b) 162nd Division, specifically the 401st Brigade and Shayetet 13, for throwing hand grenades inside a house with 30 family members, severely injuring a five-year-old boy, and later shooting and killing eight of his family members, including the boy’s seven-months pregnant mother and the father, in Sheikh Radwan between 20 and 21 December 2023.
(c) 401st Brigade, under the 162nd Division, for shooting and killing Hind Rajab and her extended family members, including Layan and other children in the car, and shelling the PRCS ambulance, killing two Palestinian humanitarian workers in Tel al-Hawa, Gaza City on 29 January 2024.
(d) 98th Division for shooting and killing a 15-year-old boy holding a white flag and his brother using sniper rifle in the west of Khan Younis on 24 January 2024.
(e) Multi-Dimensional Unit/Unit 888 or “Refaim” (Ghost) Unit, which operates quadcopters,468 for shooting and injuring a 10-day-old baby boy on 12 April 2024469 and a four-year-old girl on 24 August 2024.
(f) 99th Division for shooting and injuring an eight-year-old boy using sniper rifle in the Bureij refugee camp on 10 December 2024.
(g) Duvdevan Unit for shooting and injuring two girls (and an elderly woman) in Anza, south of Jenin on 25 September 2024.
(h) “Jordan Valley and the Valleys Brigade” also known as the 417th Territorial Brigade, for the killing of a 10-year-old boy, an eight-year-old boy along with their 23-year-old male cousin through a drone attack in Tammun Village on 8 January 2025.
(i) Menashe Brigade for shooting and killing a two-year-old girl in south Jenin on 25 January 2025.
(j) Ephraim Brigade for shooting and killing a 10-year-old boy in Tulkarem on 28 January 2025.
(k) Paratrooper Battalion, who were operating under the command of the Menashe brigade, also known as the 431st Territorial Brigade, for shooting and killing a 14-year-old boy in Al Faraa refugee camp on 16 November 2025.
357. Israeli attacks in Gaza have 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. Children now suffer from a myriad of compounding injuries which have transformed them into long-term patients who will require repeated surgeries and rehabilitation (services largely unavailable in Gaza) as they grow, anchoring disability into every phase of their lives. As a result, disability among Palestinian children has ceased to be an individual medical condition and has now become a defining demographic reality – a cohort of Palestinians growing up without one or more limbs, with chronic pain, and visible and invisible scars.
358. Israel is responsible for causing a severe orphan crisis. The Israeli security forces have orphaned thousands of Palestinian children in Gaza. Compounding the situations of orphans, at least two orphanages in Gaza have been damaged through direct and indirect attacks. Israel has essentially turned these spaces of care into militarized zones throughout their military campaign in Gaza.
359. Palestinian children from Gaza and the West Bank, especially adolescent boys, have been arrested, tortured, and ill-treated in Israeli prisons and detention facilities. Removing them from their families and communities and punishing them based on their age and their identity as Palestinians – or presuming they pose threats for future acts they have not committed – raise critical issues of proportionality, necessity and reasonableness under international law. They were held with adults, routinely subjected to torture and physical violence, without any access to lawyers, parents, or information about their whereabouts. This has created prolonged uncertainty for their families, amounting to enforced family separation. Their detention may also amount to enforced disappearances.
360. The Commission has also documented incidents of sexual and gender-based violence targeting Palestinian children, often during arrests or in detention, causing severe physical and mental harm. Consistent with the Commission’s previous findings on sexual violence committed against Palestinians, Israeli security forces used sexual violence as a tactic of war to punish, instil fear, and treat the bodies of Palestinians, including children, as instruments of collective shaming and oppression, entrenched within a prolonged, ethnic, gendered, and intergenerational pattern of Israeli occupation and hostilities.
361. Israel’s deliberate attacks on hospitals, including those serving children and newborns, systematically dismantled children’s access to life sustaining care, undermining their survival as a protected group. These attacks, including the forced closure of paediatric hospitals, form part of a broader pattern of targeting infrastructure essential to children – including newborns’ health and survival. 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. Healthcare facilities caring for children were targeted and destroyed by Israeli security forces, with the foreseeable effect of depriving children, including newborns, of essential healthcare, causing long term physical and psychological harm and preventable deaths. One egregious outcome is that Gaza now has the highest concentration of child amputees in the world.
362. The Commission contends that Israel’s targeting and destruction of neonatal and maternity healthcare infrastructures in Gaza has had particularly severe impact on birth rates and infant health outcomes. These attacks have disrupted prenatal care, induced maternal trauma, and contributed to a systemic collapse of the neonatal healthcare system, leading to a rise in miscarriages, premature births, low birth weights, and neonatal mortality, as well as an array of congenital birth defects that has induced lifelong vulnerabilities among newborns. Over two years, the birth rate in Gaza has decreased, undermining the continuity of the Palestinian population. 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.
363. Israel’s use of starvation as a method of war, imposed through a blockade and siege, has produced acute and chronic malnutrition among children in Gaza, removing the basic conditions necessary for their survival. Children, including newborns, have been deprived of calories, proteins, and nutrients necessary for growth, with visible effects such as damaged hair, skin, teeth, and paralysed limbs. Immunological vulnerabilities have also contributed to the re-emergence of diseases like polio. Growing food insecurity, destruction of healthcare, and reduced immunization have severely undermined children’s health. Israel’s use of starvation as a method of war has also caused severe reproductive harms to women and girls, impacting all aspects of reproduction, including pregnancy, childbirth, post-partum recovery and lactation, as well as adversely impacted the health of newborns.
364. Israel’s attacks on schools in Gaza and the broader disruption of access to education due to the conflict have resulted in the complete removal of children’s education in the Gaza Strip. Repeated bombardment, displacement, and the collapse of basic services have severed years of schooling, weakening core skills like reading, mathematics, memory retention, and structured study. Children in Gaza have effectively been ‘left behind’ even if they have been able to receive some informal learning in makeshift classrooms or online classes. Disruption of education has also extended to the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, where Israeli security forces and settlers have closed schools, attacked students and schools, and interfered with schooling. The Commission highlights that the cognitive damage caused by disruption to education extends beyond lost years. It reconstructs Palestinian childhood around survival rather than learning, particularly in Gaza. By severing schooling, Israeli authorities have systematically disrupted children’s ability to learn, thereby sabotaging the intellectual and social foundations of Palestinian society itself.
365. Children in Gaza have been suffering from immense psychological harm as a direct result of the hostilities and the deteriorating conditions of life. They have been stripped of any sense of safety and future. In the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Israeli military operations, arrests and detention, checkpoints, raids, settler violence, and constant surveillance have terrorised children and created a pervasive sense of hopelessness among children. Israeli policies have produced a constant situation of diffused, ambient terror, that does not require constant bombing to remain effective. Mental harm has become intergenerational, producing a distinctive “occupied psyche” in which the freedom to play, imagine, hope, and develop an identity has been eroded. Israel’s occupation and control have functioned as long term mechanisms of domination, subjugation and oppression, thereby damaging memory, identity and hope across generations.
366. Israeli soldiers in Gaza filming themselves destroying and mocking children’s toys raise serious ethical, disciplinary, and legal concerns, symbolising the dehumanization of Palestinian childhood itself. The Commission considers that such acts were carried out in order to show Israel’s dominance and control of the population by reducing symbols of childhood into objects of debasement and ridicule and Israel’s subversion of an entire community through the desecration of shared possessions and spaces.
IX. Recommendations
A. To the Government of the State of Israel:
(a) Immediately halt military operations in Gaza, including in populated areas in Gaza and close to the so-called ‘yellow line’; strictly adhere to the principles of necessity, distinction and precaution in the use of force; end the use of high-impact weapons in residential areas, as well as quadcopters, drones and snipers; withdraw all the Israeli security forces to the 1967 boundary between Gaza and Israel;
(b) Immediately implement the orders for provisional measures of 26 January, 28 March and 24 May 2024 of the International Court of Justice in the case concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel) and the advisory opinion of 19 July 2024 in respect of the Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and end the unlawful occupation, including by ceasing all new settlement activity and evacuating all settlers from the Occupied Palestinian Territory;
(c) Immediately implement and comply with the recommendations made by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in September 2024;
(d) Ensure accountability for all those with responsibility for crimes against and affecting Palestinian children, both individual perpetrators and those in positions of political or military command responsibility (including, but not limited to, the specific Israeli military units identified by the Commission in this report – for example, see Section. (VIII). Conclusions, para. 356);
(e) End arbitrary and administrative detention of children and use of torture and ill-treatment; ensure that all children are treated in accordance with international laws and juvenile justice standards including the presumption of innocence and the obligation for humane treatment; guarantee that detention is used only as a last resort, for the shortest period, and that children are not held incommunicado;
(f) Ensure incidents involving children are adjudicated exclusively by specialized civilian courts – not military courts – with expertise in juvenile justice, in full compliance with international standards, and end labelling Palestinian children as “terrorists” or security threats;
(g) Immediately release accurate data of children detainees, including those detained from Gaza, and inform child detainees’ families regularly about their place of detention and their condition;
(h) Immediately return the bodies of all deceased children to their family members and end the practice of withholding bodies of children and other Palestinian victims;
(i) End the practice of targeting healthcare facilities, educational facilities and other facilities for children such as orphanages, and ensure the urgent reconstruction of damaged facilities;
(j) Guarantee safe medical evacuation for injured children and family members and guarantee their return;
(k) Facilitate the safe, unrestricted and immediate entry of humanitarian organisations and delivery of humanitarian assistance to children, including medical care, food, and water;
(l) Take all necessary measures to ensure the protection of Palestinians including children from settler violence, in accordance with the Fourth Geneva Convention and the CRC, including through the issuance and enforcement of clear orders to the Israeli security forcesto protect the Palestinian population, and immediately dismantle all outposts and ensure that they are not reestablished;
(m) Engage and hold structured dialogue with the Palestinian authorities to establish joint protection mechanisms for Palestinian children in Israelioccupied areas, ensuring that the security operations of Israeli and Palestinian authorities prioritize the physical safety, mental and physical wellbeing and basic rights of Palestinian children in line with international child protection and child rights laws and standards;
(n) Urgently develop an Action Plan in accordance with Israel’s listing by the UN Secretary-General in relation to children and armed conflict, under A/78/842- S/2024/384, in coordination with the UN, to end grave violations against Palestinian children;
(o) Incorporate IHL and IHRL, including the special obligations towards children under international law, into training, strategy and military operations of the Israeli security forces and Israeli prison services;
(p) Cooperate fully with the International Criminal Court (ICC) and other international mechanisms investigating international crimes committed in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
B. To all the Member States and those involved in ceasefire negotiations:
(a) Arrest any Israeli officials against whom arrest warrants have been issued by the ICC and extradite them into the custody of the ICC;
(b) Employ all means reasonably available to them to prevent the commission of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity and to ensure full compliance with the Geneva Conventions in the Occupied Palestinian Territory;
(c) Cease the transfer of arms and other equipment or items, including jet fuel, to the State of Israel or third States where there is reason to suspect their use in military trade or operations that have involved or could involve the commission of genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity or other violations of the Geneva Conventions in the Occupied Palestinian Territory;
(d) Conduct investigations under domestic or universal jurisdiction of Israeli individuals or organisations suspected of having participated in unlawful acts of violence against Palestinian children, including Israeli suspects holding dual or multiple nationalities;
(e) Impose targeted sanctions, including prohibiting financial dealings and revoking or denying visas of individual Israeli ministers and officials and Israeli military personnel who may be responsible for inciting or committing violence relating to the abuse, killing or maiming of children;
(f) Impose targeted sanctions on extremist settlers, including a ban on financial transactions and travel, as well as on private entities, including charities, that support the settlement enterprise;
(g) Exhort Israel to end the siege of Gaza immediately, completely and permanently and allow unhindered humanitarian access to deliver aid and other support tailored to children’s needs in Gaza;
(h) Support political solutions and processes aimed at achieving lasting peace in Palestine, based on the right of Palestinians to self-determination and rooted in the principle of inclusivity and ownership, engaging and listening to Palestinians, including children;
(i) Support and facilitate access to justice for victims of crimes against children as a key component of any political solutions and process.
C. To the UN Security Council:
(a) Prohibit all two-way military-related trade with Israel and impose immediate, comprehensive sanctions, including travel bans, asset freezes and financial restrictions, on Israeli officials in positions of command responsibility, the leadership of the Israeli security forces and those in military command positions, and soldiers serving in Gaza on or since October 2023 who have or may have committed international crimes;
(b) Hold a dedicated debate on the situation of children in Palestine, taking stock of Israel’s compliance with ICJ’s Provisional Measures of January, March and May 2024, and authorize enforcement measures on Israel if it is found non-compliant.
D. To the UN General Assembly:
(a) Taking into account the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice of 19 July 2024, adopt a resolution calling on Member States to prohibit all two-way military-related trade with Israel and impose sanctions against Israel for its violations of international law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory;
(b) Hold a stock-taking session on Israel’s compliance with General Assembly resolution A/RES/ES-10/24 on implementation of the International Court of Justice advisory opinion of 19 July 2024 in respect of the Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.
E. To the UN Secretary General:
(a) Expand the existing listing of the Israeli Security and Armed Forces in the annexes of the annual report on children and armed conflict to also include abduction of Palestinian children, in line with the findings of this report;
(b) List Israeli settlers, as an extension of the State of Israel, in the annexes of the next annual report on children and armed conflict as “persistent perpetrators”479 for child killing, maiming and sexual violence;
(c) Issue dedicated, standalone country specific reports on the situation of children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel;
(d) Prioritize monitoring and reporting of sexual violence against Palestinian children by Israeli security and armed forces, given the alarming increase in incidents and patterns of such grave abuses;
(e) Incorporate ‘denial of humanitarian assistance’ in the future UN Action Plan with Israel, given that the siege of Gaza by Israel has caused severe malnutrition and preventable deaths of children;
(f) Closely monitor and report Israel’s deliberate ‘denial of humanitarian assistance’ to Gaza which has had a profound, continued and life-threatening impact on children, noting that the humanitarian situation in Gaza meets all five primary categories of ‘denial of humanitarian assistance’ under the CAAC agenda.
F. To the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court:
(a) Within the continuing investigation in the Situation in the State of Palestine, give particular attention to crimes against and affecting children, taking into account the principles outlined in its Policy on Children;
(b) Examine the involvement of officials mentioned in this report and others involved in crimes against and affecting children for inclusion as those most responsible for international crimes committed in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
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Source: https://www.un.org/unispal/document/coi-report-23jun26
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