“The overwhelming scale and rate of children killed and injured in Gaza have been unparalleled across modern conflicts globally,” a new report by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory reaffirmed this week. Building upon earlier evidence and new testimonies, the report backs warnings from Palestinians and international activists that Israeli forces deliberately target Palestinian children as part of a strategy to “destroy the future of the Palestinians in Gaza.”
“That’s a very serious conclusion to come to,” said Australian legal expert Chris Sidoti, one of the commission’s members, during a press conference on 26 June. Yet the widespread use of torture and other degrading treatment, attacks on schools and orphanages, and strikes on key infrastructure needed for children to lead dignified lives—such as hospitals—during the Gaza genocide left little room for doubt.
The report details various ways Israeli occupation forces have harmed children in the Strip since 7 October 2023. These include killing and injuring children through mass bombardment and indiscriminate attacks, as well as direct targeting via sniper fire and quadcopter shootings. These attacks have not ceased since the so-called ceasefire took effect in October last year, with over 100 children killed in Gaza since then. Combined with obstruction of aid deliveries and reconstruction, these actions continue to create a harrowing environment for all residents, particularly children.
“It’s all as it was in October 2025,” Sidoti added. “The [Gaza Peace] Plan should be declared a failure.”
The commission cited dozens of examples of children’s suffering. The list includes six-year-old Hind Rajab, who was killed in an Israeli attack on her family’s car and the ambulance responding to help them. It also describes how small children witnessed their families being shot or kidnapped. In December 2023, the report notes, Israeli soldiers threw four hand grenades into a house in Gaza City hosting 30 people. During the attack, a five-year-old suffered severe injuries, including abdominal evisceration. He was forced to evacuate without medical care. “He lost consciousness at the school while he was treated by a doctor who reinserted his exposed intestines by using nappies and taped his stomach.”
No “normal-sized” babies in Gaza
Interviews with international health workers volunteering in Gaza’s hospitals also revealed the extent of injuries suffered by children. From head and chest wounds to damage to eyes and hearing, the report warned that “at least 21,000 children were made newly disabled in Gaza and approximately 40,500 children suffered ‘war-related’ injuries.”
This means tens of thousands of children require long-term, often lifelong, rehabilitation but are unlikely to receive it due to the systematic destruction of healthcare infrastructure by Israeli forces. The impacts are equally felt by children with pre-existing chronic conditions, newborns, and pregnant women. “By October 2024, women in Gaza were reported to be three times more likely to die in childbirth and three times more likely to miscarry than before October 7, 2023,” the report notes.
By June 2025, a third of births in Gaza were premature, underweight, or required intensive care, including babies born at 32 weeks weighing only 0.9 kilograms. “Doctors have reported no longer seeing ‘normal-sized’ babies in Gaza.”
“There is a direct targeting by Israel to affect the long-term health outcomes of babies,” a paediatric nurse told the commission. “There is no reason why we cannot bring medications into Gaza to help pregnant women and babies, so it makes no sense except to think that this particular group is being targeted due to which there is a higher mortality among newborns.”
Compounding factors for children’s health include extreme temperatures and malnutrition, worsened by conditions created by Israel on the ground: destroyed housing, sanitation infrastructure, and aid obstructions. Speaking at the same conference as Sidoti, emergency physician Dr Mahmooda Syed referred to infectious diseases contracted by children with compromised immune systems due to hunger as “manufactured conditions.”
She emphasised that everything from basic hygiene to administering insulin is impossible in the current situation. A similar point was raised by Al Mezan Center for Human Rights on 25 June, highlighting the spread of insects and rodents resulting from Israel’s actions. The centre warned that “diseases and serious public health hazards have proliferated throughout displacement camps and residential areas amid the absence of clean water, sanitation supplies, and essential services.”
The report highlights cases of skin and hair conditions and faltering oral health. Such “manufactured conditions” often become deadly for children with compromised immunity. One case involved a 12-year-old girl with coeliac disease who suffered severe malnutrition after Israel’s 2025 blockade restricted access to gluten-free foods. The report notes that she lost “one-third of her body weight over six months, resulting in frail limbs, diarrhoea, fatigue, and a weakened immune system.” The child died “due to septic shock from a simple infection.”
“I was not able to finish any operation because every time child patients were taken back to the operating room, their injuries would be covered in maggots and sepsis under the dressings,” another health worker was quoted saying. “These child patients had no immune system due to malnutrition. Children just did not recover.”
Beyond Gaza, the report also sounds the alarm against a sharp increase in violence against Palestinian children in the West Bank, perpetrated particularly by Israeli settlers. The commission documented dozens of settler and Israeli forces attacks, which include killings, maiming, and sexual violence—and expose children to constant fear and trauma.
“By targeting children, Israel is eroding the foundational structure of Palestinian society, weakening the demographic vitality, and overall capacity of the Palestinian people to sustain and exercise its right to determine its future as a people,” the commission concluded. It recommended that governments take urgent and specific action, including a full arms trade ban on Israel, severing financial flows to illegal settlements, and investigating individuals known to have participated in attacks on Gaza—starting with their own citizens.
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