UN report captures Israel’s crimes against Palestinian children

INTERNATIONAL – ASIA

1 JULY 2026

• What began as a response to the terrorist attack by Hamas on October 7, 2023, has prolonged into a nearly three-year-long aggression resulting in over 73,000 deaths and about 1.8 lakh injuries in the Gaza Strip.
• Children accounted for 30% of these casualties and 26% of the injuries.
• Israel’s actions have been termed a genocide by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry in its September 2025 report.
• Though Israel has denied such allegations, the Commission’s new report released on June 18, 2026 has offered further evidence of Israel’s violence.
• The report observed that several acts of the Israeli forces amounted to “war crime of wilful killing and the crime against humanity of extermination.” The Commission’s inquiry conducted in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel examined violations and crimes affecting Palestinian children.
• It noted how Israeli soldiers mocked and weaponised symbols of childhood in Gaza.
• The report has captured various cases, showing how a systematic and deliberate infliction of harm has been imposed on the children in Gaza.
• The report highlighted that the children killed in Gaza represented around 2% of its entire child population.
• As per the report, the conditions of life imposed by Israel in Gaza has deprived the children access to schools and food, resulting in malnourishment among children.
• The Commission concluded that Israel has deliberately carried out acts inflicting bodily harm on thousands of children. It stated that much of this harm was not incidental but “intended to destroy the existence of Palestinians in Gaza”.