No Child Should Ever Be a Target: UN Report Must Mark a Turning Point for Accountability for Palestinian children

AMMAN, 23 June 2026 – A UN commission of inquiry report saying that children in Gaza and the West Bank were deliberately targeted by Israel authorities and security forces, must mark a turning point for the world to stop turning a blind eye to the suffering of Palestinian children and hold perpetrators to account, said Save the Children. 

The report has concluded that Israeli authorities and security forces have deliberately targeted Palestinian children resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Gaza Strip and war crimes in the West Bank. This marks only the second time in the history of a UN Commission of Inquiry that a dedicated report has focused specifically on violations against children. Its publication reflects the unprecedented scale and gravity of violations committed against children in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Save the Children’s regional director for the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe, Ahmad Alhendawi, said:  

“The findings by the Commission of Inquiry are harrowing. The sheer scale and systematic nature of Israeli military operations reported by the Commission of Inquiry have resulted in unprecedented numbers of deaths, injuries, and psychological trauma among children in Gaza and the West Bank, with more than 20,000 Palestinian children reported killed and over 44,000 others reported injured since the outbreak of the war in Gaza.  

“The report clearly reveals the extent of the harm inflicted upon Palestinian children in Gaza and the West Bank. The world can no longer turn a blind eye to this. No child should ever be a target. 

"Save the Children sees the human reality behind these findings every day in our work. Across our programmes in Gaza, we treat children who are malnourished due to a policy of deliberate starvation, children mentally distressed by the horrors of war, children injured by bullets and bombs and shrapnel. In the West Bank, we provide remedial education services to children who have faced relentless attacks on their schools, and mental health services to formerly detained children and children impacted by military raids, settler violence and displacement. 

“Member states must also live up to their obligations to ensure that Palestinian children, like all other children, are protected and impunity stops.”

Save the Children calls on all governments to cease the transfer of arms to the Government of Israel, and to comply fully with the July 2024 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice. Member states must intervene to prevent atrocity crimes from continuing throughout the occupied Palestinian territory and refrain from complicity in them—immediately and without delay.