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  "path": "/news/2010272/israels-deliberate-targeting-of-children-part-of-ongoing-gaza-genocide-un-probe",
  "publishedAt": "2026-06-23T12:46:37.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.dawn.com",
  "tags": [
    "World",
    "Palestinian children",
    "killed",
    "genocide"
  ],
  "textContent": "Israel is deliberately targeting Palestinian children in what has become a key factor in an ongoing “genocide” in Gaza, United Nations investigators charged on Tuesday, in a report slammed by Israel.\n\nThe UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry said it had found evidence that “Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted and killed by Israeli security forces”.\n\nThis, it said, was a key factor in establishing “the genocidal intent of the Israeli authorities and security forces to destroy the larger Palestinian group in Gaza”.\n\nThe three-member investigative team, which does not speak for the UN itself, first determined in a report last September that Israel had committed “genocide” during its assault in Gaza — a finding Israel flatly rejected.\n\nIn Tuesday’s follow-up report, they said the intense scale and systematic nature of Israeli military operations had continued, resulting in the “unprecedented” death, injury and trauma of Palestinian children.\n\nThere were “reasonable grounds” to conclude that Israel’s authorities and security forces “have continued to commit the crime of genocide” in Gaza, they said.\n\nIsrael, which has long been harshly critical of the commission, slammed the report as “defamatory” and a “libellous sham”.\n\nIt accused the investigators of ignoring “the brutal tactics of Hamas”.\n\n## Childhood ‘erased’ in Gaza\n\nThe commission, which was established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2021, examined for its latest report crimes affecting Palestinian children, and how living conditions imposed by Israel in Gaza were “resulting in preventable mortality of children”.\n\n“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,” the team said in a statement.\n\nThe commission said that severe physical and mental injuries, mass trauma, orphanhood, separation, disability, repeated displacements, starvation and the collapse of education and healthcare had “erased childhood” in Gaza and would continue to affect the territory’s children throughout their lives.\n\n“By targeting children, Israel is attacking the very capacity of the Palestinian people to exist and to determine their future,” said judge Srinivasan Muralidhar, who chairs the inquiry.\n\n“Even after the October 2025 ceasefire, children continue to be killed and seriously injured.”\n\n## ‘Strategy to destroy’\n\nThe report comes days after the UN children’s agency Unicef said at least 265 children had been killed and hundreds more wounded in Gaza since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect.\n\nUnicef said children had been shot, bombed and struck by quadcopters, killed in tents, in schools and while playing football or fishing.\n\nThe UN inquiry said that during the first two years of the Israeli assault, at least 20,179 children were killed and 44,143 injured “as a direct result of the hostilities in Gaza”.\n\nThe killing and maiming of Palestinian children “was part of a strategy to destroy the biological continuity and future existence of the Palestinian group in Gaza”, it said.\n\n## Disability a ‘demographic reality’\n\nBy targeting children, the report said, “Israel is eroding the foundational structure of Palestinian society, weakening the demographic vitality”.\n\nIsrael was responsible for causing a “severe orphan crisis”, while wounded youngsters “face a lifetime of disability” — now “a defining demographic reality” among Gaza’s children, it said.\n\nThe siege of Gaza “directly undermined reproductive and newborn health”, while the collapse of public health programmes “eroded the conditions necessary for a healthy next generation”.\n\nThe report listed Israeli divisions, brigades and units that may be responsible for killing children, in specific incidents in Gaza and the West Bank.\n\nBesides Gaza, the commission also documented a sharp increase in violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinian children in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.\n\nThe commission urged all UN member states, including Israel, to ensure accountability for crimes committed.",
  "title": "Israel's 'deliberate targeting' of children part of ongoing Gaza genocide: UN probe"
}