A United Nations independent commission of inquiry published a 94-page report on June 18 concluding that Israeli authorities and security forces deliberately targeted Palestinian children in Gaza — actions the commission found constitute genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The report, which covers the period from October 7, 2023, through March 31, 2026, is the most comprehensive legal and factual account yet produced by a UN-mandated body of events in Gaza and the West Bank since the start of the conflict.
What the Report Found
Israeli authorities and security forces have deliberately targeted Palestinian children, resulting in genocide and atrocity crimes in the Gaza Strip and war crimes in the West Bank, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory concluded. “The evidence shows that Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted and killed by the Israeli security forces,” said Srinivasan Muralidhar, chair of the commission.
Israel has killed 20,000 children and injured 44,000 more since October 7, 2023. Severe physical and mental injuries, mass trauma, orphanhood, separation, disability, repeated displacements, starvation and the collapse of education and healthcare have, in the commission’s words, “erased childhood” and will continue to affect children in Gaza throughout their lives.
The report found that approximately 30% of people killed in Gaza since the start of the war were children. It noted that Israel’s targeting of neonatal and maternity care centres during the war directly endangered Palestinians’ reproductive future and the survival of newborns — driving a rise in miscarriages, birth defects and lasting vulnerabilities among newborns.
The Genocide Finding and Its Legal Basis
The commission reiterates that the deliberate targeting of children is one of the key elements establishing genocidal intent on the part of Israeli authorities and security forces to destroy the Palestinian group, in whole or in part, in Gaza. The report identifies four categories of genocidal acts committed against Palestinian children: direct intentional killing, causing serious bodily and mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction, and imposing measures to prevent reproduction.
On the third category — deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to bring about physical destruction — the commission identified the total siege imposed on Gaza, blocking food, medicine, clean water and humanitarian aid, as producing acute malnutrition, the reemergence of diseases including polio, and the collapse of the neonatal healthcare system. It identified four specific indicators of genocidal intent: the nature and duration of the siege; Israel’s awareness that it would destroy Palestinians as a group; the continuation of the siege in defiance of ICJ orders; and what it called the “entrapment of Palestinians in Gaza, ensuring they cannot escape the violence and intended destruction of the group.”
Detention, Torture and Sexual Violence
Palestinian children have been arrested and subjected to torture and other severe forms of mistreatment in Israeli prisons and detention facilities, with no information provided on their whereabouts. Israeli security forces have also used sexual violence against children as part of what the commission described as “collective shaming and oppression, entrenched within a prolonged, ethnic, gendered and intergenerational pattern of Israeli occupation and hostilities.”
More than half of the Palestinian children detained in Israeli prisons at the end of last year were being held without charge or trial, a Palestinian rights group, Defence for Children International-Palestine, reported in March.
The West Bank
The commission’s findings extend beyond Gaza. In the West Bank, Israeli forces have destroyed orphanages and education facilities, obstructing children’s cognitive, social and emotional care and development and disrupting the foundations of Palestinian society. The commission concluded these acts constitute war crimes.
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 of children, the commission found. One Palestinian child has been killed every day on average for more than eight months in Gaza since the ceasefire took effect in October, according to UNICEF.
Context: What the Commission Has Previously Concluded
This is not the first time this commission has made genocide findings. In earlier conclusions released in September 2025, the commission said the Israeli military campaign in Gaza met the legal definition of genocide — a finding echoed by a growing group of genocide experts, including some Israeli scholars and human rights organisations.
The June 2026 report builds on that foundation with a specific focus on children and contains what the commission describes as an “integrated child rights analysis.” The commission examined Israeli violations against Palestinian children using multiple sources of information, with thousands of open-source items collected and verified, alongside remote and in-person interviews and group discussions with victims and witnesses.
What the Commission Is Calling For
The commission has called on Israel to immediately halt military operations in Gaza, including in populated areas and close to the so-called “yellow line,” and to strictly adhere to the principles of necessity, distinction and precaution in the use of force. It has called for the withdrawal of all Israeli security forces to the 1967 boundary between Gaza and Israel, and for the immediate implementation of the International Court of Justice’s orders for provisional measures.
The commission has also identified specific Israeli military units responsible for attacking children and called for international enforcement of sanctions aimed at advancing what it described as “child-responsive justice.”
Israel’s Response
Israel’s government has consistently rejected the commission’s findings, describing the body as biased. Israel is not a member of the UN Human Rights Council and has refused to cooperate with the commission’s investigations. The Israeli foreign ministry reiterated its position that the commission lacks legitimacy and that Israel operates within the laws of armed conflict.
The commission’s report has been formally submitted to the UN Human Rights Council and is expected to be the subject of debate at its next session.
