A UN commission of inquiry says Israel has deliberately targeted Palestinian children, resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Gaza Strip. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing BBC News.
The new report alleges that Israeli authorities and security forces have "deliberately carried out acts inflicting death and severe bodily and mental harm on hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children". The commission says it has reasonable grounds to conclude that those acts "form part of a deliberate strategy to destroy the future of the Palestinians in Gaza by targeting their children".
Israel's foreign ministry said it "utterly rejects" the commission's report, calling it a "libellous sham". The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage. At least 73,035 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, including more than 21,280 children, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.
The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel was established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2021. Its three-member expert panel does not officially speak for the UN. In September 2024, the commission accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The commission has previously concluded that Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes on 7 October 2023.
In October 2025, Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire as part of US President Donald Trump's plan to end the war. Since then, both sides have accused each other of violating the truce. Gaza's health ministry says more than 1,020 Palestinians have been killed, among them 265 children. The Israeli military says four soldiers have also been killed.
Srinivasan Muralidhar, an Indian jurist who chairs the commission, said: "Even after the October 2025 ceasefire, children continue to be killed and seriously injured." He added: "By targeting children, Israel is attacking the very capacity of the Palestinian people to exist and to determine their future."
The report says Israel has targeted Palestinian children in Gaza directly by shooting at their vital organs using precision weapons, such as quadcopter drones and snipers, and by using high-impact weapons in strikes on residential buildings, schools, and displacement camps. Israel is also legally responsible for failing to protect Palestinian children in the West Bank. The report documents that children have been "arrested, tortured, and ill-treated in Israeli prisons" and that there have been "incidents of sexual and gender-based violence targeting Palestinian children".
The Israeli foreign ministry condemned the report, saying the commission was a "fundamentally flawed mechanism whose very purpose is to single out and vilify Israel". Israel's leaders have consistently rejected allegations of genocide, saying its military operations are conducted in self-defence and in accordance with international law.