UN inquiry finds Israel deliberately targeted Gaza children, amounting to genocide
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UN inquiry finds Israel deliberately targeted Gaza children, amounting to genocide<br>//<br>Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, former DUP leader, found guilty on all 18 counts of child sexual assault, including rape<br>//<br>Hungary's Magyar moves to end President Sulyok's mandate by constitutional amendment<br>//<br>Starmer resigns, wants orderly transfer of power, Burnham overwhelming favourite<br>//<br>UN inquiry finds Israel deliberately targeted Gaza children, amounting to genocide<br>//<br>Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, former DUP leader, found guilty on all 18 counts of child sexual assault, including rape<br>//<br>Hungary's Magyar moves to end President Sulyok's mandate by constitutional amendment<br>//<br>Starmer resigns, wants orderly transfer of power, Burnham overwhelming favourite<br>//
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President Donald Trump, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on October 13, 2025, in Tel Aviv, Israel. Photo credit: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images.
A United Nations commission of inquiry has found that Israel deliberately targeted Palestinian children in Gaza, resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, in a report published on 23 June 2026.<br>The finding extends a genocide determination the same commission first reached in September 2025, and places the killing, maiming and detention of children at the centre of its case that Israel intended to destroy the Palestinian group in Gaza.<br>The report, by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, examined violations against Palestinian children between 7 October 2023 and 31 March 2026. Israel rejected it, calling the document a libellous sham.<br>The casualty figures<br>At least 20,179 children were killed and 44,143 injured in Gaza between 7 October 2023 and 7 October 2025, the Commission found, drawing on figures from the UN humanitarian office and the Gaza health ministry. Children made up 30 per cent of those killed and 26 per cent of those injured over the period.<br>That share rose from about 24 per cent in the Israeli attacks on Gaza of 2008 to 2009 and 2014, the report said.<br>At least 5,031 of the children killed were under five, including 1,029 under the age of one and about 420 newborns. Save the Children estimates a further 5,160 children remain buried under rubble.<br>"The evidence shows that Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted and killed," the Commission's chair, Justice Srinivasan Muralidhar, said.<br>At least 5,031 of the children killed were under five, including 1,029 under the age of one and about 420 newborns. Save the Children estimates a further 5,160 children remain buried under rubble. The dead amount to roughly two per cent of Gaza's 1.2 million children.<br>Children are seven times more likely than adults to die from explosive weapons, the report said, citing their smaller bodies, thinner skin and pliable bones. Israeli forces used high-payload munitions in dense residential areas throughout the war, killing families across three and four generations.<br>The Commission traced a stated shift in targeting to a 25 December 2023 Israeli military statement describing a move from selective strikes to causing "maximum damage" to Hamas.<br>When Israel ended a pause in fighting on 18 March 2025, airstrikes killed at least 170 children before midday. Between 18 and 31 March, Israeli forces killed at least 322 children and injured 609, about 100 children a day.<br>Deliberate targeting<br>The Commission concluded that Israeli forces directly and intentionally shot individual children, from newborns to adolescents, using sniper rifles, drones and quadcopters that gave operators a clear view of their targets before firing.<br>Seventeen medical practitioners who worked in Gaza hospitals reported a consistent pattern of children arriving with single gunshot wounds to the head and chest, indicating aimed fire rather than crossfire. The Commission documented a further 168 children with gunshot wounds between November 2023 and July 2025; at least 73 were shot in the head and 22 in the chest, and at least 88 died.<br>It investigated representative cases. On 29 January 2024, Israeli forces killed Hind Rajab, members of her family and two paramedics sent to rescue her in Tel al-Hawa, Gaza City. The Commission found the family's car was hit from close range and the ambulance shelled, and attributed the attack to the 401st Brigade.<br>On 24 January 2024, a sniper killed a 15-year-old boy holding a white cloth as he stepped from his home in Khan Younis, then shot the older brother who ran to him. On 12 April 2024, a quadcopter shot a 10-day-old baby in the head as his mother breastfed him in a tent in Nuseirat camp. The baby survived with brain injuries.<br>After May 2025, doctors reported treating children shot at and around aid sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.<br>"The first shot...