A UN commission of inquiry has put the deaths of 20,179 Palestinian children killed by Israel since October 2023 in a new and even more shocking light.
They were not just indiscriminately killed by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) but they were part of a deliberate and systematic policy to destroy the biological continuity of Gaza, according to the UN group.
The findings of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel published on 23 June, received little or no media coverage or reactions by western officials.
Last year, the same commission concluded that Israel had committed genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Despite a ceasefire agreement to end the war in Gaza, the commission’s new report found that the intense scale and systematic nature of the Israeli military operations have continued, resulting in unprecedented deaths, injuries, and trauma among Palestinian children.
“The evidence shows that Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted and killed by the Israeli security forces,” said Srinivasan Muralidhar, chair of the commission.
Titled The Essence of Childhood has been Destroyed: Israel’s Deliberate Targeting of Palestinian Children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 7 October 2023, the 94-page report documents severe physical and mental injuries, mass trauma, orphanhood, separation, disability, repeated displacements, starvation, and the collapse of education and healthcare in Gaza.
This has destroyed childhood for many and will continue to affect children in the Strip throughout their lives.
The report covers the period between 7 October 2023 and 31 March 2026 with a focus on Gaza while also examining the sharp increase of Israeli settler violence against Palestinian children in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
The commission’s methodology drew on multiple sources of information, including the collection and verification of thousands of open-source items; the conduct of remote and in-person interviews and group discussions with victims and witnesses, information from healthcare workers, members of academia, journalists, and lawyers who had been in contact with victims and their families; and evidence (medical reports including X-rays), photographs, videos and audio statements of patients.
Two independent forensic pathologists provided analysis of the evidence, including computed tomography (CT)-scans, medical reports, photographs and videos of children who were shot and either killed or maimed.
Until 7 October 2023, roughly half of the population of the Gaza Strip was under
the age of 18 – in other words, children who had lived their entire lives under the Israeli blockade and occupation.
Between 7 October 2023 and 7 October 2025, at least 44,143 children were injured, constituting 30 per cent of those killed and 26 per cent of those injured during this period.
The report describes the arrest and torture of Palestinian children and other severe forms of mistreatment in Israeli prisons and detention facilities, with no information on their whereabouts.
This includes using sexual violence against children as part of collective shaming and oppression entrenched within a prolonged, ethnic, gendered, and intergenerational pattern of Israeli occupation and hostility.
Israel’s targeting of neonatal and maternity care centres in Gaza has directly harmed the survival of newborns and the Palestinians’ reproductive future, including rises in miscarriages, birth defects, and lasting vulnerabilities among newborns, resulting in the destruction of the population’s continuity.
Starvation imposed by Israel through blockade and siege have further caused the deaths of many Palestinian children and severely impacted the health of many others, depriving them of essential nutrition and increasing disease risks amid reduced immunisation, food insecurity, and destroyed health services.
In parallel, Israel’s dismantling and destruction of orphanages and education facilities in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, have obstructed children’s cognitive, social and emotional care and development and disrupted the foundations of Palestinian society, the report said.
“Even if the bombs and guns fall silent in Gaza and the West Bank, Palestinian children will not simply recover overnight,” said Muralidhar. “The destruction of their health, education, and development is irreversible.”
Children killed in Gaza represent around two per cent of Gaza’s 1.2 million child
population until October 2025.
At least 5,031 children under five years were killed during this period, of whom 1,029 children were under the age of one, and some 420 were newborns. The commission notes that the number of children killed and injured from the hostilities in Gaza is also higher than the one reported.
Some 5,160 children are estimated by the international charity Save the Children to be buried under the rubble. Additionally, unknown numbers of children are buried in unmarked graves without their deaths being recorded or simply marked as missing.
The report cites Israeli security officials on Israel’s Channel 14 TV detailing the use of high-resolution surveillance quadcopters to kill Palestinian children at a level of accuracy that no human sniper can achieve. The IOF units responsible were identified.
The commission said the Israeli authorities did not respond to the 13 requests it presented for information or access. Israel currently occupies Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.
Gaza hosts the largest group of child amputees in modern history. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), at least 42,000 people in Gaza have life-changing injuries because of the war.
One in four of them is a child.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 2 July, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.
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