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The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including East Jerusalem, e Israel published yesterday, the 23rd of June, a detailed report of about 100 pages in which it documents the systematic use of brutal violence against Palestinian children by the State of Israel and its army. The title of the report is eloquent: “The Essence of’childhood ”it was destroyed". The independent commission examined violence and attacks on children in the various occupied Palestinian territories, not just Gaza, and the crimes they suffered, including psychological crimes.
The report clearly highlights how the specific targeting of children is among the most telling demonstrations of Israel's genocidal intent towards the Palestinian people. The text reads: “The targeting of Palestinian children is fundamental to establishing the genocidal intent of Israeli authorities and security forces to destroy the Palestinian group as a whole in Gaza. The Commission observes that the ’intent to destroy« does not imply that such destruction must have necessarily occurred; however, specific intent can be ascertained from the totality of the evidence, through the pattern of conduct of Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces, even in cases where the targeting of children has continued despite clear warnings and, importantly, even when the foreseeable consequences of such action have actually occurred. Children are not simply part of a population; their survival is fundamental to the existence and continuity of the Palestinian group. The sheer number of cases investigated and documented by the Commission, which highlight a clear pattern of children being directly targeted by Israeli security forces, constitutes a key element of the genocidal intent of Israeli authorities to destroy the Palestinian group in Gaza.
The Commission considers that the killing and the severe physical and mental injuries inflicted on Palestinian children were part of a strategy aimed at destroying the biological continuity and future existence of the Palestinian group in Gaza. The Commission therefore reiterates its conclusion that the Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces committed the crime of genocide ”a Gaza by killing and causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, including Palestinian children, present therein."
We are providing readers with the full version of the report in Italian, in our unofficial translation, given the importance and timeliness of the document. As always, Kritica publishes all its articles and materials free of charge for its readers. You can support the work done to provide you with our report with a voluntary contribution, Who.
The original English version of the report is Who.
Read and download the report in Italian
Below, we reproduce the conclusions of the report in their full version.
As an occupying power, Israel is legally obliged to ensure the protection, assistance and survival of Palestinian children. However, through the nature, scope and scale of Israeli military operations in Gaza, the Israeli government And the security forces deliberately committed acts that caused the death and serious physical and mental harm to hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children, irreparably destroying the sanctity of childhood, including family ties, identity, innocence, safety and future. The Commission found that much of the harm suffered by Palestinian children was not accidental, but was aimed at destroying the existence of Palestinians in Gaza as a group. Since children embody the biological and social continuity of the group, the Commission has reasonable grounds to conclude that these acts form part of a deliberate strategy aimed at destroying the future of Palestinians in Gaza by targeting their children.
The protection, care and survival of Palestinian children and pregnant women are inextricably linked to the fundamental right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, as children represent the future bearers of their collective identity and resilience. By targeting children, Israel is eroding the fundamental fabric of Palestinian society, weakening the demographic vitality and overall capacity of the Palestinian people to sustain and exercise their right to determine their future as a people.
Israel has targeted Palestinian children in Gaza in two distinct ways: directly, by shooting their vital organs using arms specifically, quadcopters and snipers; and through the use of high-impact weapons causing widespread and systematic attacks against residential buildings, schools and refugee camps crowded with children. Israel is also legally responsible for failing to protect Palestinian children from becoming targets for soldiers and Israeli settlers in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and for having permitted, facilitated and encouraged the ongoing violence by settlers, which serves to consolidate settlements, annex Palestinian land and force Palestinians to abandon their lands.
Killings continued even after the October 2025 ceasefire. After October 2025, children continued to be killed and injured in various circumstances, including as they approached the so-called «yellow line,» demonstrating Israel's blatant disregard for the terms of the ceasefire. The Commission argues that a ceasefire that allows Israeli security forces to open fire on children crossing an ill-defined border cannot credibly be considered a cessation of hostilities. The vagueness of the markings, the absence of clear warnings, and the lack of safe corridors have turned the area into a death trap, particularly for children. It is scandalous that the «ceasefire» has effectively consolidated the continued Israeli occupation in Gaza, characterised by restrictions on civilian movement and attacks that cause casualties, including children.
Based on its investigations and documentation, the Commission has concluded, with well-founded reasons, that the following divisions, brigades or units of the Israeli security forces may be responsible for the killing and injury of Palestinian children in Gaza and the West Bank in the following incidents:
- The Kfir Brigade for drone attacks and the killing of two brothers, aged 10 and 9, near Bani Suheila, east of Khan Yunis, in the south of Gaza, on 29 November 2025.
- The 162nd Division, in particular the 401st Brigade and Shayetet 13, for throwing hand grenades inside a residential building where 30 members of the same family were present, severely injuring a five-year-old child, and for subsequently shooting and killing eight members of his family, including his seven-month-pregnant mother and father, in Sheikh Radwan between 20 and 21 December 2023.
- The 401st Brigade, part of the 162nd Division, for having shot and killed Hind Rajab and her extended family members, including Layan and other children present in the car, and for bombing the PRCS ambulance, killing two Palestinian aid workers in Tel al-Hawa, in Gaza City, on 29 January 2024.
- 98th Division for shooting and killing a 15-year-old boy waving a white flag and his brother using a sniper rifle in the western area of Khan Younis on 24 January 2024.
- Multidimensional Unit/Unit 888 or Unit «Refaim» (Phantom), which used quadcopters to shoot and injure a 10-day-old baby on 12 April 2024469 and she is a four-year-old girl on 24 August 2024.
- 99th Division for shooting and wounding an eight-year-old child with a sniper rifle in the Bureij refugee camp on 10 December 2024.
- Duvdevan unit for shooting and wounding two girls (and an elderly woman) in Anza, south of Jenin, on 25 September 2024.
- The “Jordan Valley and Valleys Brigade”, also known as the 417th Territorial Brigade, for the killing of a 10-year-old child and an eight-year-old child along with their 23-year-old cousin following a drone strike in the village of Tammun on January 8th, 2025.
- Menashe Brigade for shooting and killing a two-year-old girl south of Jenin on January 25, 2025.
- The Ephraim Brigade for shooting and killing a 10-year-old child in Tulkarem on January 28, 2025.
- (k) The Paratrooper Battalion, which operated under the command of the Menashe Brigade, also known as the Territorial Brigade 431, for shooting and killing a 14-year-old boy in the Al Faraa refugee camp on November 16, 2025.
Israeli attacks on Gaza have given rise to a new generation of Palestinian children who will now face a life of disability that will shape their sense of agency and control over their future. Children are now suffering from a myriad of co-occurring injuries that have turned them into long-term patients who, as they grow, will require repeated surgeries and rehabilitation (services largely unavailable in Gaza), embedding disability into every stage of their lives. Consequently, disability among Palestinian children has ceased to be an individual medical condition and has now become a defining demographic reality: a cohort of Palestinians growing up without one or more limbs, with chronic pain and visible and invisible scars.
Israel is responsible for causing a severe orphan crisis. Israeli security forces have orphaned thousands of Palestinian children in Gaza. Exacerbating the orphans' plight, at least two orphanages in Gaza have been damaged by direct and indirect attacks. Israel has in effect turned these care facilities into militarised zones during its military campaign in Gaza.
Palestinian children in Gaza and the West Bank, especially teenage boys, have been arrested, tortured and mistreated in Israeli prisons and detention facilities. Separating them from their families and communities and punishing them based on their age and Palestinian identity – or assuming they pose a threat for future acts they have not committed – raises critical issues of proportionality, necessity and reasonableness under international law. They have been detained alongside adults, systematically subjected to torture and physical violence, without any access to lawyers, parents, or information about their location. This has created prolonged uncertainty for their families, amounting to forced separation. Their detention may also amount to enforced disappearance.
The Commission has also documented episodes of sexual and gender-based violence against Palestinian children, often during arrests or while in detention, which have caused severe physical and psychological harm. In line with the Commission’s previous findings on sexual violence perpetrated against Palestinians, Israeli security forces have used sexual violence as a tactic of warfare to punish, instil fear, and treat the bodies of Palestinians, including children, as instruments of collective humiliation and oppression, rooted in a prolonged, ethnic, gendered, and intergenerational pattern of Israeli occupation and hostilities.
Israel's deliberate attacks on hospitals, including those caring for infants and newborns, have systematically compromised children's access to life-saving care, undermining their survival as a protected group. These attacks, including the forced closure of paediatric hospitals, are part of a broader pattern of targeting infrastructure essential for children's well-being – including the health and survival of newborns. With Gaza's healthcare system collapsing, injured children have undergone operations in overcrowded or damaged facilities, often without anaesthesia, sterile conditions, or post-operative care, leading to permanent damage and increased mortality. Healthcare facilities catering for children have been targeted and destroyed by Israeli security forces, with the predictable effect of depriving children, including newborns, of essential healthcare, causing long-term physical and psychological harm and preventable deaths. A particularly grave consequence is that Gaza now has the highest concentration of child amputees globally.
The Commission claims that targeted attacks and the destruction of neonatal and obstetric health infrastructure by Israel in Gaza have had a particularly severe impact on birth rates and the health outcomes of newborns. These attacks have disrupted prenatal care, caused trauma to mothers, and contributed to the systemic collapse of the neonatal healthcare system, leading to an increase in miscarriages, premature births, low birth weight, and neonatal mortality, as well as a range of congenital disabilities that have caused permanent vulnerabilities in newborns. Over two years, the birth rate in Gaza has fallen, undermining the continuity of the Palestinian population. The damage inflicted on the reproductive capacity of Gaza's inhabitants and the denial of reproductive healthcare have caused severe, disproportionate, and long-term harm to pregnant women, newborns, and future generations.
Israel's use of starvation as a method of warfare, imposed through blockade and siege, has resulted in acute and chronic malnutrition among children in Gaza, denying them the basic requirements for survival. Children, including infants, have been deprived of the calories, proteins, and nutrients necessary for growth, with visible effects such as damage to hair, skin, and teeth, and limb paralysis. Immunological vulnerabilities have also contributed to the resurgence of diseases such as polio. The growing food insecurity, destruction of the healthcare system, and reduction in vaccinations have severely compromised children's health. Israel's use of starvation as a method of warfare has also caused severe reproductive damage to women and girls, with repercussions across all aspects of reproduction, including pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum recovery, and breastfeeding, as well as negatively impacting the health of newborns.
Israeli attacks on Gaza's schools, and the broader disruption of access to education due to the conflict, have led to the complete cessation of education for children in the Gaza Strip. Repeated bombardments, displacement, and the collapse of basic services have disrupted years of schooling, weakening foundational skills like reading, mathematics, memory recall, and structured study. Gaza's children have effectively been «left behind,» even if they have been able to receive informal education in makeshift classrooms or through online lessons. The disruption to education has also extended to the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, where Israeli security forces and settlers have shut down schools, attacked students and educational institutions, and obstructed the school pathway. The Commission stresses that the cognitive damage caused by the disruption to education extends beyond the lost years. It reconstructs Palestinian childhood around survival rather than learning, particularly in Gaza. By disrupting the educational pathway, Israeli authorities have systematically undermined children's capacity for learning, thereby sabotaging the intellectual and social foundations of Palestinian society itself.
The children of Gaza are suffering immense psychological damage as a direct consequence of hostilities and deteriorating living conditions. They have been deprived of any sense of security and future. In the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Israeli military operations, arrests and detentions, checkpoints, raids, settler violence, and constant surveillance have terrorised children and created a pervasive sense of despair among them. Israeli policies have generated a constant situation of widespread and pervasive terror, which does not require continuous bombing to remain effective. Psychological damage has become intergenerational, giving rise to a peculiar «occupied psyche» in which the freedom to play, imagine, hope and develop an identity has been eroded. Israeli occupation and control have functioned as long-term mechanisms of domination, subjugation and oppression, thereby damaging memory, identity and hope across generations.
Israeli soldiers in Gaza filmed destroying and mocking children's toys raise serious ethical, disciplinary and legal concerns, symbolising the very dehumanisation of Palestinian childhood. The Commission considers that such acts were committed to demonstrate Israel's dominance and control over the population, reducing symbols of childhood to objects of humiliation and mockery, as well as Israel's subversion of an entire community through the desecration of shared property and spaces.
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PHOTO CREDITS: Hamed Sbeata