The Gaza children genocide findings were cited on Tuesday by a United Nations commission, which said Israel deliberately targeted and killed Palestinian children during its war on Gaza.
The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel said the violations amounted to genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
The UN’s report examined alleged Israeli violations against Palestinian children since the start of the war in October 2023 and said children made up about 30 percent of those killed in Gaza.
Commission chair Srinivasan Muralidhar said evidence showed Palestinian children had been deliberately targeted and killed by Israeli security forces.
The commission said attacks on neonatal and maternity care centres endangered newborn survival and Palestinians’ reproductive future, contributing to miscarriages, birth defects and long-term vulnerabilities.
Read: UN Blacklists Israel for Human Rights Violations Against Children in Gaza
The report said Israel’s aid blockade had caused starvation-related deaths among children and increased disease as immunisation rates fell.
The United Nations Children’s Fund said more than 50,000 children had been killed or wounded by Israeli forces since the start of the war, according to the UN report.
The commission also said Palestinian children had been arrested, tortured and mistreated in Israeli prisons, including through sexual abuse.
Israel’s mission in Geneva rejected the report as defamatory and said it ignored what it called Hamas’s tactics.
