Israeli authorities and security forces deliberately targeted Palestinian children, leading to acts that amount to genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, as well as war crimes in the occupied West Bank, an independent United Nations inquiry said Tuesday.
The report by the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel, examined alleged violations against Palestinian children since the war between Israel and Hamas began Oct. 7, 2023.
It found that roughly 30% of those killed in the Gaza conflict were children.
A previous report by the commission in September found that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza and that top Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, incited these acts, accusations Israel has called scandalous.
Israel’s mission in Geneva said it rejected what it called the commission’s “second defamatory advocacy report.”
“Israel dismisses this libelous sham,” it said in a statement, adding that every child deserves protection and asserting that the report ignored what it described as the brutal tactics of Hamas.
The U.N. commission said Palestinian children were deliberately targeted and killed during the war, including after a cease-fire took 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.
The report found that the proportion of children killed was higher than in previous conflicts. Between Oct. 7, 2023, and Oct. 7, 2025, at least 20,179 children were killed, about 30% of the overall death toll.
By comparison, in hostilities in Gaza in 2008-2009 and 2014, children made up about 24% of conflict-related fatalities, the report said.
Israeli forces continued to use high-payload munitions and weapons with wide-area 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, adding that it believed children were targeted collectively because Israeli security forces considered the civilian population as a whole to be associated with Hamas and other groups.
A rebuttal shared by Israel’s mission in Geneva said Israel “consistently strives to minimize harm to children even in situations of conflict” and rejected the suggestion that it deliberately targets children “in the strongest terms.”
Muralidhar said that by targeting children, Israel was undermining the capacity of the Palestinian people to exist and determine their future.
Conditions imposed by Israel in Gaza, including widespread attacks, repeated displacement and starvation caused by restrictions on aid, food and medicine, severely harmed children’s health and development, resulting in preventable deaths and trauma, the report said.
The inquiry also found that attacks on health care and reproductive facilities affected the survival of newborns and reported increases in miscarriages, and that nearly all children in Gaza were reported to require psychological support.
Israel’s rebuttal said the report failed to mention Israel’s role in facilitating vaccinations and the entry of medical staff, as well as the establishment of field hospitals. It accused Hamas of systematically diverting humanitarian aid and fuel intended for hospitals. Hamas has rejected those accusations.
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, particularly boys, were subjected to systematic mistreatment in detention, including forced stripping, beatings and food deprivation.
The commission concluded that the treatment constituted crimes against humanity, including torture and other inhumane acts causing great suffering or serious injury.
Israel’s rebuttal said the report’s findings on the West Bank omitted context on what it described as the constant terrorist threat that Israeli security forces were responding to.
