Search
DONATE

Occupied Palestinian Territory: U.N. Commission of Inquiry Finds Deliberate Violence Against Children Continue Despite "Ceasefire"

Media Contact:
[email protected]

FAIRFIELD, Conn. (Oct. 29, 2026)—The latest report from the United Nations affirms what Save the Children has been witnessing firsthand: Despite the "ceasefire," Israeli authorities and forces continue to deliberately inflict severe physical and psychological harm on Palestinian children from Gaza to the West Bank, amounting to the crime against humanity of age-based persecution.

In June 2026, the Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israeli authorities and security forces had "deliberately targeted" Palestinian children in Gaza, amounting to age-based persecution. Its latest report, released on Monday, finds for the first time that the same crime is being committed against children in the West Bank. The report also details war crimes and crimes against humanity in the West Bank and finds that Israel continues to commit genocidal acts in Gaza.

In one documented example from June 2026, an Israeli soldier fired two rounds without warning into a stopped family vehicle, killing a seven-month-old baby.[1]

At least 21,500 children have been killed across the occupied Palestinian territory since October 2023, including more than 340 children killed in Gaza since the October 2025 ceasefire agreement.[2]

Save the Children staff in Gaza and the West Bank attest to the devastation being wrought on children and families - including their own. In Gaza, our teams treat children who have suffered malnutrition, children injured by bullets, bombs, and shrapnel, and children struggling with the mental toll of war and occupation. In the West Bank, we provide remedial education to children whose schools have been attacked, and mental health support to children formerly held in Israeli military detention and to those traumatized by military raids, settler violence, and displacement.

President & CEO of Save the Children US, Janti Soeripto, said:

"The U.N. Commission's report is a disturbing, but not surprising, confirmation of the deliberate violence against children in the occupied Palestinian territory. The harm to Palestinian children is not collateral. It is a pattern that has continued through three years of conflict and more than a year into the so-called ceasefire.

"In Gaza and the West Bank, there is no safe place to be a child. Parents should not have to worry about their infants being shot, or airstrikes hitting their home or the camp their family was displaced to.

"Save the Children and other groups are providing lifesaving support and child protection, but children in Gaza and the West Bank will not be safe until the violence against them stops and impunity for perpetrators ends."

Save the Children calls on all governments to cease the transfer of arms to the Government of Israel and to comply fully with the July 2024 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice. Member states must intervene to prevent atrocity crimes from continuing throughout the occupied Palestinian territory and refrain from complicity in them—immediately and without delay.

###

Notes:

Save the Children believes every child deserves a future. Since our founding more than 100 years ago, we've been advocating for the rights of children worldwide. In the United States and around the world, we give children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. We do whatever it takes for children – every day and in times of crisis – transforming the future we share. Our results, financial statements and charity ratings reaffirm that Save the Children is a charity you can trust. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X and YouTube.