UN Inquiry Finds Targeted Attacks on Gaza’s Children Indicate Genocidal Intent

The United Nations‑mandated report concludes that Israel’s deliberate targeting of Palestinian children constitutes genocide in Gaza. The commission asserts that children have been both victims and intended targets, establishing genocidal intent. Israel has dismissed the report’s findings as “defamatory.”

Children have died directly from military attacks and indirectly from destroyed schools and hospitals, starvation, and the collapse of essential services, the report states.

The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, mandated by the UN, found “reasonable grounds” to determine that Israel is committing genocide.

The commission notes that Israel’s actions have left a generation physically and psychologically scarred, undermining Palestinians’ ability to survive as a group.

The 100‑page report documents violations against Palestinian children in Gaza from 7 October 2023 to 31 March 2026.

More than 20,000 children were killed in Gaza between 7 October 2023 and 7 October 2025. Over 40,000 were wounded, and more than 58,500 lost at least one parent or became orphans, the commission says.

Because children represent the future of a people, the commission argues that deliberately targeting them supports the conclusion that Israeli authorities intended to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, in whole or in part.

Maximum Damage

The commission reports that Israeli forces repeatedly bombed densely populated neighborhoods, schools, and crowded refugee camps while dismantling the systems children need to survive and develop.

It states that 97 percent of schools were destroyed and 95 percent of universities were damaged, with 22 of Gaza’s 38 universities completely destroyed.

The report also accuses Israel of targeting maternity and neonatal services, contributing to miscarriages and birth defects, while imposed starvation killed children through malnutrition and caused long‑term harm.

By 1 October 2025, 151 children had died from malnutrition, it says.

“Israel is attacking the very ability of the Palestinian people to exist and determine their future by targeting children,” commission chairman Srinivasan Muralidhar said.

Israeli forces are alleged to have used precision weapons to deliberately target children. Evidence cited includes children shot in the head and upper body by quadcopter drones, other drones, and sniper rifles “to inflict maximum damage.”

One documented case involves a baby being breastfed inside a tent who was shot in the head by a drone equipped with an infrared camera.

The report also references the widely reported killing of five‑year‑old Hind Rajab, who was trapped in a car for hours after her family members were killed while she waited for rescuers.

“The severe physical and psychological injuries, collective trauma, orphanhood, separation, disability, repeated displacement, starvation and the collapse of education and healthcare systems have destroyed these children’s childhoods and will continue to affect them throughout their lives in Gaza,” the report states.

Israeli Denials

Israel rejected the findings, labeling the report “defamatory” and a “slanderous masquerade.”

The Foreign Ministry said the claims had not been verified and described the commission as “a fundamentally flawed mechanism whose very purpose is to single out and vilify Israel rather than seek the truth.”

Israel accused the commission of ignoring “Hamas’s brutal tactics, which ruthlessly target Israeli children and use Palestinian children as human shields.”

The state has also previously accused the commission of anti‑Semitism and of acting as a Hamas proxy.

The commission maintains its findings are based on evidence, not allegations.

“We know who they are,” commissioner Chris Sidoti said, referring to Israeli military divisions, brigades and units identified as potentially involved in incidents where children were killed in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

The Reality Behind the Figures

Despite the October 2025 ceasefire, children continue to be killed and seriously wounded. Since the truce began, at least 265 children have been killed, averaging one per day.

“Raghad, a 17‑year‑old UNICEF youth ambassador, was killed in Gaza on Monday while traveling to her final secondary school examination,” UNICEF advocacy chief Baptiste Chapuis told RFI.

For survivors, the damage can last a lifetime.

“Fear and violence have become so regular, so everyday and so constant that the trauma we see is no longer just an episode in their lives. It is intrinsically linked to their daily reality and to the very fabric of their childhood,” Chapuis said.

UNICEF spokesman James Elder emphasized that children were killed not in a distant war zone but in their homes, schools, while playing football, and while fishing, often by drones.

In eight months, more than 400 children have been wounded, with doctors treating brain haemorrhages and severe injuries to the head, chest, and abdomen.

“The reality is that Palestinians continue to be killed and injured in Gaza even after the ceasefire announced last October, while the amount of humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza remains far below what is needed,” Muralidhar said.

Child mortality remains high, many children are still awaiting emergency medical evacuation, and medicines remain in critically short supply, the report noted.

Violence Beyond Gaza

The commission also examined the treatment of children in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, where it says violence by Israeli settlers and soldiers against children has increased.

It cites torture, sexual violence, and deprivation of food during arrests and detention—mainly affecting boys—as crimes against humanity under international law.

More than half of Palestinian children held in Israeli prisons at the end of last year were detained without charge or trial, according to child‑rights NGO Defence for Children International.

Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories rank first in the latest UN Secretary‑General’s report on children in armed conflict, ahead of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Violations listed include killings, mutilations, sexual violence, deliberate obstruction of humanitarian access, and attacks on hospitals and schools.

The report also says videos showing Israeli soldiers destroying and mocking children’s toys raise “serious ethical, disciplinary and legal concerns,” symbolising “the dehumanisation of Palestinian childhood itself.”

Israel argues its actions are justified by a “constant terrorist threat.”

Call to Action

An earlier inquiry published in September last year concluded that genocide was taking place in Gaza, stating Israel had committed four of the five prohibited acts under the 1948 Genocide Convention.

Shortly thereafter, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said he saw “growing evidence” of genocide in Gaza.

As the occupying power, Israel has a legal duty to protect, care for, and ensure the survival of Palestinian children, the commission said.

“Israeli authorities have violated every standard of international law in their treatment of Palestinian children, and they must be held accountable,” Sidoti said.

The latest report concludes that much of the harm suffered by Palestinian children “was not incidental but intended to destroy the existence of Palestinians in Gaza as a group.”

It urges the international community, including France, to use all diplomatic means to stop the violations, hold perpetrators accountable, and guarantee unrestricted humanitarian access to Gaza.

“As long as these systematic violations continue, the killing and mutilation of children will continue without pause. Do we really believe that the life of a Palestinian child is worth less than that of a child from another country? What justifies such a double standard?” Chapuis asked.

“The scale of the violations of international humanitarian law and children’s rights over the past two and a half years has been documented. No one will be able to say they did not know.”

This story has been adapted from the original French version by Anne Bernas

Source link