Killings and harm to Palestinian children central to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, UN inquiry finds
A UN Commission of Inquiry has found that the killing of children and other harm inflicted on them has been central to Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza, alongside a systematic pattern of war crimes and crimes against humanity that have affected young people in both Gaza and the West Bank since October 2023.
The findings are set out in a report by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel. They are framed around what the title of the document refers to as the destruction of “The Essence of Childhood.” The commission used the phrase to reflect what it described as the collapse of nearly every protection owed to children under international law.
In an interview with Arab News, the chairperson of of the commission, Justice Srinivasan Muralidhar, said the conclusions it reached were based on a documented pattern of tactics used by Israeli forces and settlers that specifically target children, including the use of drone-mounted weapons, among them quadcopters.
Medical practitioners who testified before the commission at a public hearing described large numbers of infants and young children who were brought to them with gunshot wounds to the head, skull and neck, including one case of a baby shot through the head by a quadcopter while feeding at her mother’s breast.
