Israel continues to commit genocide by deliberately targeting Palestinian children in Gaza, an independent UN inquiry has found.
The report by the UN independent international commission of inquiry examined violations against Palestinian children since the start of the war in Gaza, and said about 30% of the people killed by Israeli forces have been children.
A previous report by the commission in September found that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza and that Israeli officials, including the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, incited these acts. Netanyahu is separately wanted by the international criminal court (ICC) for war crimes.
The Israeli mission in Geneva said Israel rejected the commission’s “libellous sham”. Israel has fought hard against allegations of genocide, while receiving critical diplomatic support from its allies, including the US and the UK.
A significant body of research by legal and rights experts has concluded that Israel is intent on destroying Palestinians, including analyses by UN investigators, rights bodies such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and genocide scholars worldwide.
Genocide, which became a crime after the second world war and the Holocaust, is considered the most serious international crime.
Women mourn a baby killed in an Israeli strike on Khan Younis last year. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
The convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide defines it as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.
The UN commission said in its report, released on Tuesday, that Palestinian children were deliberately targeted and killed during the war, including after a ceasefire came into effect in October 2025.
It said this was a key element in establishing genocidal intent by Israeli authorities and security forces to destroy the Palestinian group, in whole or in part, in Gaza.
“The evidence shows that Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted and killed by the Israeli security forces,” said Srinivasan Muralidhar, the commission’s chair, in a statement accompanying the report.
Children jostle for food at an aid point in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza on Monday. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
Israeli forces continued to use high-payload munitions and weapons with widespread effects in densely populated residential areas, despite mounting child casualties, the commission said.
“This indicates that such attacks, which killed children in such high numbers, were intentional,” it said. It added that it believed children were targeted collectively because the Israeli security forces considered the civilian population as a whole to be associated with Hamas and other armed groups.
Muralidhar said that by targeting children, Israel was undermining the capacity of the Palestinian people to exist and to determine their future.
Conditions Israel imposed on Gaza, including widespread attacks, repeated displacement, and starvation caused by its blockade of aid, food and medicine, severely harmed children’s health and development, resulting in preventable deaths and trauma, the report said.
Children playing among the rubble of destroyed buildings in Gaza’s Jabalia camp last year. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
The inquiry also found that attacks on healthcare and reproductive facilities affected newborns’ survival and the reported increase in miscarriages, and that nearly all children in Gaza were reported to be in need of psychological support.
Israel’s rebuttal accused Hamas of systematically diverting humanitarian aid and fuel for hospitals. Hamas has rejected such accusations, while Israel has been accused of blocking aid and fuel from reaching Gaza.
The report focused not only on Gaza but also the occupied West Bank, which Israel continues to control despite the international court of justice declaring its occupation unlawful.
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 detention.
It said Palestinian children, especially boys, were subjected to systemic mistreatment in detention, including forced stripping, beatings and food deprivation.
The commission concluded that the treatment constituted the crimes against humanity of torture and other inhumane acts causing great suffering or serious injury.
Reuters contributed to this report
