GENEVA: Israeli authorities and security forces deliberately targeted Palestinian children, resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, and war crimes in the occupied West Bank, an independent UN investigation said on Tuesday.
The report of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel examined violations against Palestinian children since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas on October 7, 2023.
About 30% of those killed in the Gaza war were children, according to the report.
An earlier report by the commission in September found that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza and that senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, incited these acts, accusations Israel called outrageous.
Israel's mission in Geneva said Israel rejected what it called the Commission's “second defamatory defense report.”
“Israel rejects this defamatory farce,” it said in a statement, adding that “every child deserves protection” and claiming that the report ignored “Hamas's brutal tactics.”
The UN commission said Palestinian children were deliberately targeted and killed during the war, even after a ceasefire came into effect in October 2025. It said this was a key element establishing the genocidal intent of Israeli authorities and security forces to destroy the Palestinian group, in whole or in part, in Gaza.
“The evidence shows that Israeli security forces have deliberately targeted and killed Palestinian children,” Srinivasan Muralidhar, the commission's president, said in a statement accompanying the report.
Child deaths
The report found the proportion of children killed was higher than in previous conflicts. Between October 7, 2023 and October 7, 2025, at least 20,179 children were killed, around 30% of the total number of deaths.
By comparison, in hostilities in Gaza in 2008-2009 and 2014, children accounted for approximately 24% of conflict-related deaths, according to the report.
Israeli forces continued to use high payload munitions and weapons with long-range effects in densely populated residential areas despite the increase in child casualties, the commission said.
“This indicates that such attacks, which killed such a large number of children, were intentional,” he said. He said he believed the children were being targeted collectively because Israeli security forces considered the civilian population as a whole to be associated with Hamas and other armed groups.
A rebuttal shared by Israel's mission in Geneva said that Israel “constantly strives to minimize harm to children even in conflict situations” and that Israel rejected the suggestion that it deliberately targets children “in the strongest terms.”
Muralidhar said that by targeting children, Israel was undermining the Palestinian people's ability to exist and determine their future.
The conditions imposed by Israel in Gaza, including widespread attacks, repeated displacements and famines caused by the blockade of aid, food and medicine, severely damaged the health and development of children, leading to preventable deaths and trauma, according to the report.
The investigation also found that attacks on health and reproductive facilities affected the survival of newborns and reported increases in miscarriages, and that almost all children in Gaza needed psychological support.
Israel's rebuttal said that the report did not mention Israel's role in facilitating vaccination and the entry of medical personnel, nor the establishment of field hospitals. He accused Hamas of systematically diverting humanitarian aid and fuel for hospitals. Hamas has rejected such accusations.
West Bank
In the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the Commission found a sharp increase in violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinian children and documented evidence of torture, including sexual and gender-based violence, during mass arrests and detentions.
He said Palestinian children, particularly boys, were subjected to systematic mistreatment during their detention, including forced stripping, beatings and deprivation of food.
The commission concluded that the treatment constituted crimes against humanity of torture and other inhumane acts causing great suffering or serious injury.
Israel's rebuttal claimed that the report's conclusions on the West Bank omitted context about the “constant terrorist threat” to which it said Israeli security forces were responding.
