UN details Gaza's horror stories of Israel 'deliberately targeting' children

Trigger warning: This article contains details that some readers might find distressing.

ISLAMABAD: Five-year-old Hind Rajab spent hours trapped inside a car surrounded by her relatives' bodies while speaking to Red Crescent emergency dispatchers before, according to the United Nations, rescuers attempting to reach her were themselves killed.  

Her story went on to become one of the defining tragedies from Israel’s war on Gaza. But a UN report titled "The essence of childhood has been destroyed," by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, says Israel is ‘deliberately targeting’ Palestinian children and that Hind's case is only one among thousands that show the systematic devastation of Palestinian childhood since October 2023.

The individual accounts appear throughout the 94-page report, which examines the deaths of more than 20,000 children and the impact of the war on Palestinian children from October 7, 2023, to March 31, 2026. 

Brutal killings of children

The report contains details of the killing of a 15-year-old boy shot by a sniper while holding a white flag during an evacuation in Khan Younis in January 2024. 

According to the report, "The boy was hit in the left foot, and he fell on his face. As he attempted to stand, two more gunshots were fired within seconds from the same direction. One shot hit the boy on his back and another on the left side of his neck".

The report added that considering the accuracy of the guns used by the Israeli military, the shots were "likely meant to ensure that he was dead," and that his 20-year-old brother was killed moments later, running to his aid.

The commission said the killing of children continued even after a ceasefire took hold in Gaza in October 2025. 

Two brothers, aged 10 and nine, were shot by an Israeli drone in southern Gaza in November 2025 while collecting firewood for their wheelchair-bound father. Israeli forces said soldiers had identified two "suspects" approaching their position near a demarcation line dubbed the "yellow line". After examining the incident, however, the Commission concluded the boys were gathering firewood and could not reasonably have posed an immediate threat.

A doctor told the commission that the line was impossible for civilians to identify, adding that "It is difficult for Palestinians to know where the yellow line is ... it is impossible for people, particularly children, to know or locate the line."

The youngest child whose case is examined in detail was a 10-day-old baby who, according to the Commission, was shot in the head by a quadcopter while being breastfed inside a displacement tent in Nuseirat in April 2024.

"The mother was alone in the tent, breastfeeding her baby, when a single bullet from a quadcopter hit the baby in the head and exited through the back of his head, hitting the pillow behind her. The baby survived but sustained brain injuries and now suffers from seizures," the commission said.

Lost both legs

Another case highlighted in the report is a three-year-old boy who survived an attack on a UNRWA school after losing both parents and a younger brother earlier in the war. 

The child lost both legs, and doctors told the Commission he is expected to require repeated surgeries throughout his childhood. "However, this level of pediatric surgical care is not available in Gaza due to Israel’s destruction of healthcare facilities," the report said. 

"Based on the clustering of injuries and the targeted body parts, I assess that the Israeli soldiers have been deliberately shooting teenage boys in a game of target practice – a different body part being targeted on different days … There is a very clear pattern that suggests this is a deliberate aiming of different body parts [of children]," a doctor said.

Recalling the attack, the boy's uncle told the commission, "I ran outside to find my three-year-old nephew ... covered in blood with his legs cut off, signaling with both his hands for me to pick him up and save him."

As of 5 April, 2025, the Ministry of Health in Gaza recorded approximately 846 cases of children with amputation, accounting for almost 18% of the 4,700 cases of amputation recorded.

Far from isolated incidents

The report goes on to mention hundreds of cases in less exhaustive detail: children abducted and tied to trees by settlers in the West Bank; newborns who died after incubators lost power during Israeli strikes on hospitals; and a 12-year-old girl with celiac disease who died of septic shock in October after a months-long blockade cut off access to the food she needed to survive, her medical evacuation approved only after her death.

Doctors interviewed by the commission said they repeatedly treated children with severe gunshot wounds and blast injuries. One surgeon who worked in Gaza told investigators he observed "a very clear pattern" suggesting children were being deliberately shot. At the same time, another described seeing injuries that would leave children with lifelong disabilities.

Scale of the toll

The report says more than 20,000 Palestinian children were killed and over 44,000 injured in Gaza between October 2023 and October 2025, adding that many more remain missing or buried beneath rubble. 

The commission said it found "reasonable grounds" to conclude that Israeli authorities and security forces have committed genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity against Palestinian children, and called for an immediate halt to military operations, sanctions against officials found responsible, and enforcement of International Court of Justice orders. 

It said its findings were based on individual cases investigated using forensic pathology, ballistic analysis, satellite imagery, medical records and witness testimony from doctors, family members and children themselves.