“You will die, your children will die, your grandchildren will die, there won’t be a Palestinian state, there won’t be.”
– Hanoch Milwidsky, Member of the Knesset, February 21, 2024
‘THE ESSENCE OF CHILDHOOD HAS BEEN DESTROYED’ writes the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, which last month published a comprehensive report on Israel’s targeting of Palestinian Children in the ongoing conflict in Gaza between October 7, 2023 and March 31, 2026.
Unlike previous reports, which examined civilian harm more broadly, this report adopts a child-centered approach, examining how the conflict has affected every aspect of childhood, including physical survival, health, education, family life, mental wellbeing and future development. The Commission argues that Palestinian children have suffered not merely incidental harm resulting from military operations, but have been exposed to a pattern of violence that has fundamentally altered the conditions necessary for childhood itself.
Beyond battlefield casualties, the Commission examined the cumulative effects of military operations, displacement, detention, destruction of civilian infrastructure and prolonged humanitarian deprivation. The report, therefore, presents childhood as a legal and humanitarian category deserving special protection under international law and argues that the systematic erosion of these protections has produced long-term consequences extending beyond immediate physical injury. The report demonstrates that beyond solely mortality figures, children’s victimization should also be measured by considering developmental, psychological and societal harms.
