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Human rights violations by Israel against Palestinian children have resulted in a call to UN Member States to arrest and extradite Israeli officials with International Criminal Court warrants and to take all available steps to prevent the commission of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
This article is extracted from the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory including East Jerusalem.
The Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israel’s deliberate targeting of Palestinian children since 7 October 2023 has resulted in the “essence of childhood” being destroyed.
It examined violations and crimes against and affecting Palestinian children, including serious physical and psychological harm by the Israeli security forces.
Those actions resulted in the death of at least 20,179 and injury of 44,143 children since 7 October 2023, according to the Commission of Inquiry.
The paper described the deliberate targeting and killing of Palestinian children, including since the October 2025 Gaza peace plan.
Health and disability
Israeli attacks in Gaza have created a new generation of Palestinian children who will face a lifetime of disability that will shape their future sense of autonomy and agency.
Children were found to suffer from myriad compounding injuries transforming them into long-term patients requiring repeated surgeries and rehabilitation (largely unavailable in Gaza) as they grow, anchoring disability into every phase of their lives.
Disability among Palestinian children has become a defining demographic reality – a cohort of Palestinians growing up without one or more limbs, with chronic pain, and visible and invisible scars.
One egregious outcome is that Gaza now has the highest concentration of child amputees in the world.
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 underwent 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, depriving children, including newborns, of essential healthcare, causing long-term physical and psychological harm and preventable deaths.
The Commission contends that Israel’s targeting and destruction of neonatal and maternity healthcare in Gaza had severe impacts on birth rates and infant health outcomes.
These attacks 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, and an array of congenital birth defects, inducing lifelong vulnerabilities.
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, newborns and future generations.
Food insecurity, destruction of healthcare, and reduced immunisation have severely undermined children’s health.
Orphan crisis
Israel is responsible for causing a severe orphan crisis, according to the findings.
The Israeli security forces have orphaned thousands of Palestinian children in Gaza.
At least two orphanages in Gaza have been damaged through direct and indirect attacks.
Israel has turned spaces of care into militarised zones throughout their military campaign in Gaza.
Detention and torture
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 had not committed – raised critical issues of proportionality, necessity and reasonableness under international law.
Children have been 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 families, amounting to enforced family separation.
Their detention may amount to enforced disappearances.
Sexual violence
The Commission has 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 to punish, instil fear, and treat the bodies of Palestinian children as instruments of collective shaming and oppression, entrenched within a prolonged, ethnic, gendered, and intergenerational pattern of Israeli occupation and hostilities.
Starvation
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.
Israel’s use of starvation as a method of war has caused severe reproductive harms to women and girls, impacting all aspects of reproduction, including pregnancy, childbirth, post-partum recovery and lactation, and adversely impacted the health of newborns.
Denial of education
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.
Disruption of education has 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 highlighted 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.
Psychological harm
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.
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, damaging memory, identity and hope across generations.
Israeli soldiers in Gaza filming themselves destroying and mocking children’s toys raised serious ethical, disciplinary, and legal concerns, symbolising the dehumanisation of Palestinian childhood.
The Commission considers that such acts were carried out 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.
Recommendations
The Commission of Inquiry made recommendations to the Government of the State of Israel, to UN member states and those engaged in negotiations, to the UN General Assembly, the UN Security Council, the UN Secretary General and the ICC.
UN member states
In light of its findings about the substantial breach of international laws on the protection of children, the Commission of Inquiry called for all United Nations member states “to employ all means reasonably available to them to prevent the commission of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity”.
It wants member states to arrest any Israeli officials against whom arrest warrants have been issued by the ICC and extradite them into the custody of the ICC.
The nations which form the UN should ensure full compliance with the Geneva Conventions in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, according to the report.
Nations that are UN members have been called upon to cease the transfer of arms and other equipment or items, including jet fuel, to the State of Israel or third States using such arms in military trade involved in “the commission of genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity or other violations of the Geneva Conventions in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”.
It wants investigations conducted 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.
UN member states have been called upon to impose targeted sanctions, including prohibiting financial dealings and revoking or denying visas of Israeli ministers, officials and military personnel who may be responsible for inciting the abuse, killing or maiming of children.
The imposition of 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, is another recommendation for UN members to adopt.
The report stated that UN members should 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.”
It also called for UN member states to support political solutions and processes aimed at achieving lasting peace in Palestine, based on the right of Palestinians to self-determination and the principle of inclusivity and ownership, engaging and listening to Palestinians, including children.
Victims of crimes against children should also be supported by member states who should facilitate access to justice as a key component of any political solutions and process.
Security Council
The UN Security Council has been asked to prohibit all two-way military-related trade with Israel and impose immediate, comprehensive sanctions, including travel bans, asset freezes and financial restrictions, on Israeli commanding officials, 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.
It has been asked to hold a dedicated debate on the situation facing children in Palestine, taking stock of Israel’s compliance with ICJ’s Provisional Measures of January, March and May 2024, and authorise enforcement measures on Israel if it is found non-compliant.
General Assembly
The UN General Assembly should 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.
It has been asked to hold a stock-taking session on Israel’s compliance with 2024 resolutions and ICJ advice “in respect of the Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem”.
Secretary General
The Secretary General has been advised to expand their annual report listing of the Israeli Security and Armed Forces on children and armed conflict to include abduction of Palestinian children in line with the findings of the report.
The Commission of Inquiry has called for the Secretary General to list Israeli settlers in the next annual report as “persistent perpetrators” for child killing, maiming and sexual violence.
The Commission of Inquiry has also recommended the preparation of country-specific reports on the situation of children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel.
They should also prioritise 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”.
The Secretary General should also incorporate ‘denial of humanitarian assistance’ in the future UN Action Plan with Israel, given that Israel’s siege of Gaza has caused severe malnutrition and preventable deaths of children.
It has also called for the close monitoring and reporting on Israel’s deliberate ‘denial of humanitarian assistance’ to Gaza, noting that the humanitarian situation in Gaza meets all five primary categories of ‘denial of humanitarian assistance’ under the CAAC agenda.
ICC Prosecutor
Within its continuing investigation in the Situation in the State of Palestine, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court should “give particular attention to crimes against and affecting children, taking into account the principles outlined in its Policy on Children.”
The Commission of Inquiry also called for the ICC Prosecutor to 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.
Israel
The Commission of Inquiry has called for Israel to immediately halt military operations in Gaza, including in populated areas in Gaza and close to the so-called ‘yellow line’.
It wants Israel to 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; and withdraw all the Israeli security forces to the 1967 boundary between Gaza and Israel.
It has recommended that Israel immediately implement the orders for provisional measures from the International Court of Justice, dating from January, March and May 2024, 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).
Likewise, it recommends Israel must adhere to 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.
Another recommendation is that Israel immediately implement and comply with the recommendations made by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in September 2024.
It wants the government of the State of Israel to 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.
The recommendations call for the end arbitrary and administrative detention of children and use of torture and ill-treatment; and seek to 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.
Detention should be used only as a last resort, for the shortest period, and children not held incommunicado.
Israel, according to the Commission of Inquiry, should ensure incidents involving children are adjudicated exclusively by specialised 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.
It has called for the immediate release of accurate data of children detainees, including those detained from Gaza, and inform child detainees’ families regularly about their place of detention and their condition.
The immediate return the bodies of all deceased children to their family members was another recommendation along with ending the practice of withholding bodies of children and other Palestinian victims.
Another recommendation was to 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.
The guarantee of safe medical evacuation for injured children and family members and the guarantee of their return was yet another recommendation directed at Israel.
The safe, unrestricted and immediate entry of humanitarian organisations and delivery of humanitarian assistance to children, including medical care, food, and water has been demanded.
Israel should also protect Palestinians including children from settler violence, through clear orders to the Israeli security forces to protect the Palestinian population, and immediately dismantle all outposts and ensure that they are not reestablished.
Israel should engage and hold structured dialogue with the Palestinian authorities to establish joint protection mechanisms for Palestinian children in Israeli-occupied areas, to prioritise the physical safety, mental and physical wellbeing and basic rights of Palestinian children.
Israel should urgently develop an Action Plan in accordance with Israel’s listing by the UN Secretary-General in relation to children and armed conflict, in coordination with the UN, to end grave violations against Palestinian children.
The special obligations towards children under international law should be incorporated into training, strategy and military operations of the Israeli security forces and Israeli prison services.
Israel should cooperate fully with the International Criminal Court (ICC) and other international mechanisms investigating international crimes committed in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
What it looked at
The Commission has published four mandated reports and four conference room papers since 7 October 2023.
This latest report presented 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).
The Commission examined 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 analysed Israel’s targeting of critical infrastructure essential to children, such as healthcare facilities, attacks on orphanages and schools.
The Commission examined 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.
The examination of those living conditions collectively revealed severe, multi-layered harm to Palestinian children’s survival, health, and development.
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.
Hamas and other armed groups
The Commission previously presented comprehensive findings on violations and abuses against Israeli children committed by the military wing of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups.
In those 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 found 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.
Latest findings
The latest report brings together the Commission’s findings on violations and crimes against and affecting Palestinian children from 7 October 2023 until 31 March 2026, with a particular focus on Gaza.
The Commission applied an integrated child rights analysis in preparing the report to examine all aspects of Palestinian children’s lives and development, including the harm caused by Israeli attacks on their physical, emotional, social and cognitive well-being.
Multiple sources of information were consulted; thousands of open-source items were collected and verified; and remote and in-person interviews and group discussions with victims and witnesses conducted.
The Commission attempted to incorporate children’s own perspectives through interviews and group discussions aligned with the principles of ‘best interests of the child’ and ‘do no harm’ and the right of the child to participate and be heard in matters affecting them.
Information was obtained from healthcare workers, members of academia, journalists and lawyers who had been in contact with victims and their families. Patients shared medical reports including xrays, photos, videos and audio statements.
Two independent forensic pathologists provided forensic analysis of the evidence, including CT-scans, medical reports, photographs and videos, of the children who were shot and either killed or maimed.
Open-source material was verified through cross-referencing with a broad, varied collection of reputable sources and complemented by advanced forensic examination, including visual media authentication, geolocation and chrono-location analysis, metadata extraction and face recognition.
Legal framework
According to the Commission, under international law, the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, remain subject to belligerent occupation by Israel.
It states that international humanitarian law applies to those territories and to Israel concurrently with international human rights law.
The Commission found that Gaza continues to be under Israeli occupation because of Israel’s control of airspace, territorial waters and land border crossings, and the re-establishment of an Israeli military presence and control on the ground in Gaza since October 2023.
This has been affirmed by the International Court of Justice in July 2024.
“Israel therefore is bound by the obligations incumbent upon an occupying power under international humanitarian law, as set forth in the Fourth Geneva Convention and customary international law, including the Regulations annexed to the 1907 Hague Convention (IV) respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land.”
It affirmed that children are rights holders whose rights are enshrined in human rights instruments. Children are entitled to all the rights of human beings, as well as rights held by them alone as children, including under article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which entitles them to special care, assistance and social protection, and under the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).
“This heightened protection applies to all Palestinian children under the occupation of Israel, as an occupying power, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.”
The CRC requires Israel to ensure for Palestinian children:
- enjoyment of all rights without discrimination;
- their best interests as a primary consideration in all decisions affecting them;
- protection of their right to life, survival and development; and
- respect for their right to be heard and to have their views taken into account in all matters affecting them.
The CRC should protect children from unlawful or arbitrary detention, allow lawful detention only as a last resort and for the shortest appropriate time, and require humane treatment, access to assistance, family contact, and the ability to challenge detention for those who are detained.
Other human rights treaties binding on Israel reinforce and deepen these special protections for Palestinian children.
Not responsible
During its review by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in September 2024, Israel maintained that it does not have legal responsibility under the CRC for Palestinian children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including Gaza.
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child regretted this position of Israel, which it characterised as a repeated denial of Israel’s obligations towards Palestinian children.
The Commission reaffirmed that Israel, as a party to the CRC, is obligated to ensure the protection of children’s rights beyond its sovereign territory where it exercises effective control, including Palestinian children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
“Customary international law recognises that children in armed conflict are entitled to special protection, including priority access to relief, safeguards in evacuation and family reunification, and prohibits their recruitment or use in hostilities,” it said.
“Israel must avoid attacks expected to cause excessive incidental civilian harm, including to children, relative to anticipated legitimate military advantage,” the Commission said.
“The obligation to minimise harm includes the provision of medical care and evacuation to civilians, including children, injured as a result of military operations.
“As an occupying power, Israel must, to the fullest extent of the means available, ensure the provision of adequate food and medical supplies, maintain medical and hospital services, and facilitate the work of relief organisations to meet children’s needs.
“It is prohibited from imposing collective penalties or other measures that result in widespread deprivation among children.
“Where children are deprived of liberty, lawfully or unlawfully, international humanitarian law requires that they be treated at all times with humanity and protected from all acts of violence, intimidation, insults and public curiosity.
“Children must be held in conditions that fully take account of their age and needs.”
Regular contact with their families must be facilitated.
Under international humanitarian law, the dead, including children, must be respected and their remains treated with dignity. Parties to the conflict must facilitate recovery, identification and, wherever possible, return their remains to families.
Upon the Commission’s recommendation the Israeli security forces were listed in the annexes of the 2024 Secretary General’s Annual Report in connection with grave violations, particularly for killing and maiming of Palestinian children and attacks on schools and hospitals, signalling sustained concern about patterns of serious harm to children and reinforcing the need for independent and effective investigations.
Intended to destroy
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.
The protection, care, and survival of Palestinian children and pregnant women, are inextricably linked to the Palestinian people’s fundamental right to self-determination, 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.
