The UN commission of inquiry says that Israel is carrying out massacres in Gaza by deliberately targeting children
The UN commission of inquiry says that Israel has deliberately targeted Palestinian children, resulting in massacres, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Gaza Strip, as well as war crimes in the West Bank.
A new report alleges that the Israeli authorities and security forces “deliberately carried out acts of murder and severe physical and psychological harm to hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children”, and that the killings continued even after the end of last October’s cease-fire in Gaza.
The commission says it has reasonable grounds to conclude that those actions are “part of a deliberate strategy to destroy the future of Palestinians in Gaza by targeting their children”.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said it “absolutely rejects” the commission’s report, calling it a “disgraceful hoax” and “as monstrous a piece of propaganda as ever”.
The Israeli army launched an operation in Gaza in response to an unprecedented attack led by Hamas in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which approximately 1,200 people were killed and 251 were captured.
At least 73,035 people have been killed in Israel’s offensive in Gaza since then, including more than 21,280 children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in the area, whose figures are considered reliable by the UN.
The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel was established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2021 to investigate allegations of violations of international humanitarian law and human rights.
Its three-member expert panel does not officially represent the UN.
Last September, the commission accused Israel of killing Palestinians in Gaza. The report said there are reasonable grounds to conclude that four of the five acts of genocide defined under the 1948 Genocide Convention were committed by Israeli authorities and security forces. Israel strongly rejected the report, calling it distorted and false.
The commission previously concluded that Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes and other serious violations of international law on 7 October 2023, and that Israeli security forces committed crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza.
Last October, Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire as part of US President Donald Trump’s plan to end the war.
Since then, both sides have repeatedly accused each other of violating the agreement. The Gaza Health Department says more than 1,020 Palestinians have been killed, including 265 children. The Israeli military said four soldiers were also killed.
On Tuesday, the commission of inquiry said in a statement issued along with the report that the “intensity and orderliness” of Israeli military operations in Gaza continued, leading to “unprecedented deaths, injuries and trauma of Palestinian children”.
“Even after the October 2025 ceasefire, children continue to be killed and seriously injured, and Israel’s continued neglect to stop shooting and protect Palestinian children under international law,” said Srinivasan Muralidhar, an Indian jurist who chairs the commission.
“The protection, care and survival of Palestinian children are inseparable from the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination,” he added. “By targeting children, Israel is attacking the very capacity of the Palestinian people to exist and determine their future.”
New commission report, outside he says Israel is targeting Palestinian children in Gaza by shooting their vital organs using precision weapons, such as quadcopter drones and snipers, and using high-powered weapons in strikes on residential buildings, schools, and refugee camps full of children.
Israel also bears legal responsibility for failing to protect Palestinian children targeted by Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank, he added.
The report also states that children from Gaza and the West Bank, especially adolescent boys, “have been arrested, tortured, and ill-treated in Israeli prisons and detention centers”, and that it has documented “incidents of sexual and gender-based violence against Palestinian children, often during arrest or detention”.
Israel’s attacks on newborn and children’s hospitals in Gaza are currently “systematically disrupting children’s access to self-sustaining care, undermining their survival as a protected group”, according to the report.
It also accuses Israel of using hunger as a means of war, and warns that restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza “have produced severe and chronic malnutrition among the children of Gaza, removing the basic conditions necessary for their survival”.
And it alleges that through attacks on schools, mass displacement and forced closures, the Israeli authorities have “systematically disrupted children’s ability to learn, thereby destroying the intellectual and social foundations of Palestinian society itself”.
Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the report, saying the commission was “a very flawed approach whose aim is to flatter Israel instead of seeking the truth”.
“It completely erases the Israeli children who were brutally killed, kidnapped, and targeted by Hamas, while ignoring Hamas’s despicable use of Palestinian children as human shields and war tanks,” it added. It accused the commission of lacking “any way to substantiate its claims”.
Israel’s leaders have been denying allegations of genocide, and have said that its military operations in Gaza were carried out in self-defense, to defeat Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups, and to secure the release of Israeli hostages.
They also stressed that the Israeli forces acted in accordance with international law and took all possible measures to minimize civilian casualties.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is currently hearing a case brought by South Africa accusing Israeli soldiers of killing people, but it may take years to reach a conclusion. Israel called the case “completely baseless” and based on “biased and false claims”.
