An international commission of inquiry with a UN mandate accused this Tuesday Israel to commit “genocide” in the Gaza Strip by “targeting” Palestinian children.
Palestinian children collect objects from trash in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza Strip. Photo:AFP
On the occasion of the publication of a new report of this commission, Srinivasan Muralidhar, its president, stated in a statement that “By targeting children, Israel attacks the Palestinian people’s ability to exist and determine their future.”
Muralidhar recalled that Since October 2023, more than 20,000 children have been murdered in Gazaanother 44,000 were injured and more than 58,000 were orphaned.
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Israel, for its part, called the report “defamatory.” and accused the commission of “silencing the brutal tactics of Hamaswhich mercilessly attacks Israeli children and uses Palestinian children as human shields.”
The team emphasizes that they found evidence that “Israeli security forces deliberately targeted and killed Palestinian children”which he considered a key factor in establishing the “genocidal attempt by the Israeli authorities and security forces to destroy the largest Palestinian group in Gaza.”
Since October 2023, more than 20,000 children have been murdered in Gaza. Photo:EFE
According to the commission, there are “reasonable grounds” to conclude that Israeli authorities and security forces “have continued to commit the crime of genocide” in Gaza.
Parallel to this, and in an action that goes against the ceasefire signed days ago, the Israeli Army confirmed having shot at four people who were traveling “in an excavator and a motorcycle”, whom they identified as Hezbollah militiamen, in southern Lebanon,
In a statement, the Army said that the individuals crossed the “security” perimeter that the troops maintain in the neighboring country and that was then when they fired, as they approached the soldiers “representing an immediate threat.” Lebanese authorities confirmed the death of two people as a result of the attack.
According to the Lebanese National News Agency (ANN), the attack occurred when Israeli soldiers “opened fire with their machine guns” against a group of people “near an excavator working on the construction of a road” in the Al Deir neighborhood, in the town of Nabatieh al Fawqa.
In this regard, the head of Hezbollah, Naim Qasen, demanded a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops, according to “a calendar.”
Earlier, Hezbollah called the incidents a “flagrant” Israeli violation of the truce and a “treasonous attack.”
‘Irreversible’ destruction
“Even after the October 2025 ceasefire, children continue to be killed and seriously injured, “Israel continues to ignore the ceasefire and the protection that international law requires to give Palestinian children,” the investigative group noted.
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“Even if the bombs and guns fall silent in Gaza and the West Bank, Palestinian children will not wake up from one day to the next,” because “the destruction of their health, their education and their development is irreversible,” he insisted.
Children play in an area that houses displaced Palestinians, in Khan Younis. Photo:AFP
Israel and Hamas accuse each other almost daily of violating the truce that went into effect last October, while The Gaza Strip continues to be plagued by violence following the war triggered by the attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement on October 7, 2023 in Israeli territory.
Last September, The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry, mandated by the UN Human Rights Council, but which does not speak on behalf of that organization, arrived “to the conclusion that genocide is taking place in Gaza.”
He claimed that Israeli authorities and security forces had committed “four of the five genocidal acts” contained in the 1948 Convention on genocide.
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These crimes are “killing of members of the group; serious injury to the physical or mental integrity of members of the group; intentional subjection of the group to conditions of existence that will lead to its physical destruction, in whole or in part; and measures intended to prevent births within the group.”
Israel and Hamas accuse each other almost daily of violating the truce that went into effect last October. Photo:AFP
After the publication of that first report, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk said he saw “growing evidence” of a “genocide” in Gaza.
In its new report, the commission denounces “selective attacks against neonatology and maternity services” by Israel, which has led to an increase in spontaneous abortions and genital malformations, with lasting effects on “population continuity.”
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The researchers also consider that “hunger caused by the Israeli blockade” of the Strip has caused the death of children and seriously deteriorated their health.
A boy runs with a Palestinian flag over a pile of rubble in Gaza. Photo:Eyad BABA / AFP
Likewise, the team points out that the dismantling and destruction of protection and education structures in Gaza, and also in the West Bank – including East Jerusalem – have endangered its development and weakened “the foundations of Palestinian society.”
