An independent UN commission of inquiry found that Israeli authorities and security forces deliberately targeted Palestinian children in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, the commission said on June 23, 2026 [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10].
The report details that around 30% of those killed in the Gaza war since October 7, 2023, were children, a higher proportion than in previous conflicts where about 24% of fatalities were children [1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 5]. The commission documented at least 20,179 Palestinian children killed between October 7, 2023, and October 7, 2025 [1, 2, 3, 6].
Despite mounting child casualties, Israeli forces continued to use high-payload munitions and weapons with wide-area effects in densely populated residential areas in Gaza, the inquiry said [1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8]. The commission found reasonable grounds to conclude Israel committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, applying four of the five acts defined under the 1948 Genocide Convention [11, 1, 4, 7, 8].
The deliberate targeting and killing of children continued even after a ceasefire took effect in October 2025. "Even after the October 2025 ceasefire, children continue to be killed and seriously injured, with continued disregard by Israel for the ceasefire and for the protection owed to Palestinian children under international law," said Srinivasan Muralidhar, chair of the UN commission [11, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10].
The commission highlighted the severe physical and psychological trauma inflicted on Palestinian children, including orphanhood, disability, repeated displacement, hunger, and collapse of education and healthcare systems [10, 8, 9]. It also documented arbitrary arrest, torture, sexual abuse in detention, and attacks on neonatal and maternity centers by Israeli forces, worsening children's survival rates [10, 7, 9].
UNICEF estimates that over 50,000 Palestinian children have been killed or wounded since the war began, including an average of one child killed daily since the October 2025 ceasefire [7, 9].
"The evidence shows that Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted and killed by the Israeli security forces," Muralidhar said. "By targeting children, Israel is attacking the very capacity of the Palestinian people to exist and to determine their future," he added [1, 8].
Israeli authorities and the Israeli mission in Geneva rejected the UN commission's findings, denouncing the reports as a "libellous sham," "defamatory," and propaganda. They accused the commission of ignoring Hamas’s brutal tactics and emphasized that every child deserves protection [11, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8].
The UN Human Rights Council established the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel in May 2021. The commission first released reports finding reasonable grounds Israel committed genocide in Gaza before the conflict escalated further in 2023 [11, 1, 4, 10, 7, 8].
With repeated violations of the 2025 ceasefire and continued child casualties, the latest report underscores ongoing violence and rights abuses. Authorities involved have yet to agree on a path toward accountability or prevention measures.
