Since October 2023 more than 20,000 children
were killed and over 44,000 injured.
- As an occupying power, Israel is legally bound to ensure the protection, care and survival of Palestinian children. The protection, care and survival of children and pregnant women are linked to the Palestinian people's fundamental right to self-determination.
- By targeting children, Israel is eroding the foundational structure of Palestinian society.The commission found indisputable evidence that children were intentionally targeted via sniper fire, drones and targeted airstrikes. [Editor: see this 1.52 min. video interview with Dr. Mark Perlmutter, president of the World Surgical Foundation, on the sniper killing and wounding of children in Gaza; Sunday Morning, 7/23/2024]
- Israeli attacks have created a new generation who now face a lifetime of disability that will shape their sense of autonomy and agency over their own future. Disability among Palestinian children has ceased to be an individual medical condition and has now become a defining demographic reality -- children growing up without one or more limbs, with chronic pain and with visible and invisible scars. The mental harm on children is as devastating, widespread and irreversible as the physical pain they endured.
- Palestinian children from Gaza and the West Bank, especially adolescent boys, have been arrested, tortured and ill-treated in Israeli prisons and detention facilities. They are held with adults without any access to lawyers, parents or information about their whereabouts.
- Israel has deliberately attacked hospitals, including those serving children and newborns. These attacks have forced the closing of pediatric hospitals; injured children have undergone procedures in overstretched or damaged facilities, often without anesthesia, sterile conditions or postoperative care, leading to a lifetime harm and increased mortality.
- Israel's use of starvation as a method of war, imposed through a blockade and siege, has produced acute and chronic malnutrition among children. This use of starvation as a method of war has caused severe reproductive harm to women and girls impacting all aspects of reproduction including pregnancy, childbirth, post-partum recovery and lactation, as well as adversely impacting the health of newborns.
- Israeli soldiers in Gaza filming themselves destroying and mocking children's toys raise serious ethical, disciplinary and legal concerns, symbolizing the dehumanization of Palestinian children itself.
- The Commission finds that the killing of and serious bodily and mental harm inflicted on Palestinian children was part of a strategy to destroy the biological continuity and future existence of Palestinians in Gaza. The Commission reiterates its conclusion that the Israeli authorities and the Israeli security forces have committed the crime of genocide in Gaza.
- On June 23, 2026 the Israeli government categorically rejected the findings of the commission as fundamentally flawed. It stated "every child deserves protection and a future free from terrorist incitement and martyrdom training camps. Yet, the COI's [Commission of Inquiry] latest report is a propaganda piece as outrageous as its previous ones. " (Israel in UN/Geneva, Press Statement, 6/23/2026)
-- Editor's note: I quoted directly and extensively from the report by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel issued on June 23, 2026. The Commission was established by the UN Human Rights Council on May 27, 2021. The video interview with Dr. Perlmutter was featured in the June 6, 2025 issue of this newsletter. The top photo was not taken from the report.