Israel continues to commit genocide by targeting children in Gaza, UN inquiry finds. Independent report says by aiming at children Israel is undermining capacity of Palestinian people to exist

Children playing among the rubble of destroyed buildings in Gaza’s Jabalia camp last year.

Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Israel continues to commit genocide by deliberately targeting Palestinian children in Gaza, an ⁠independent UN inquiry has found.

The report by the UN independent international commission of inquiry examined violations against Palestinian children since the start of the war in Gaza, and said about 30% of the people killed by Israeli forces have been children.

A previous report by the commission in September found that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza and that Israeli officials, including the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, incited these acts. Netanyahu is separately wanted by the international criminal court (ICC) for war crimes.

The Israeli mission in Geneva said Israel rejected the commission’s “libellous sham”. Israel has fought hard against allegations of genocide, while receiving critical diplomatic support from its allies, including the US and the UK.

A significant body of research by legal and rights experts has concluded that Israel is intent on destroying Palestinians, including analyses by UN investigators, rights bodies such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and genocide scholars worldwide.

Genocide, which became a crime after the second world war and the Holocaust, is considered the most serious international crime.

The convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide defines it as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.

The ​UN commission said in its report, released on Tuesday, that Palestinian children were deliberately targeted and killed during the ‌war, including after a ceasefire came into effect ‌in October 2025.

It said this was a key element in establishing genocidal intent by Israeli authorities and security forces to destroy the Palestinian group, in whole or in part, ‌in Gaza.

“The evidence shows that Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted and killed by the Israeli security forces,” ... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/23/israel-deliberately-targeting-gaza-children-to-commit-genocide-un-inquiry-finds

  [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine] 

18 June 2026- Human Rights Council- Sixty-second session

“The essence of childhood has been destroyed”: Israel’s deliberate targeting of Palestinian children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 7 October 2023

Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel   ... READ MORE  https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies/hrcouncil/sessions-regular/session62/a-hrc-62-crp-2.pdf 

Israeli authorities and security forces deliberately targeted Palestinian children, resulting ​in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, and war crimes in the occupied West Bank, an independent U.N. inquiry said ‌on Tuesday.

A displaced Palestinian boy peers through a tear in a tent wall, in Gaza City, May 6, 2026. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa/ File Phot

Israel targeted Gaza children resulting in genocide, UN inquiry says

By Olivia Le Poidevin

June 23, 2026

• Summary

• Israel deliberately targeted Palestinian children, UN inquiry says
• Israel calls report a 'libelous sham', says it strives to minimize harm to children
• Report finds 30% of those killed in Gaza war were children
• Inquiry says Israel carried out crimes against humanity in West Bank

GENEVA, June 23 (Reuters) - Israeli authorities and security forces deliberately targeted Palestinian children, resulting ​in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, and war crimes in the occupied West Bank, an independent U.N. inquiry said ‌on Tuesday.

 

The report by the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel examined violations against Palestinian children since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas on October 7, 2023.

Around 30% of those killed in the Gaza war were children, the report found.... READ MORE https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-targeted-gaza-children-resulting-genocide-un-inquiry-says-2026-06-23/?lctg=63aab956e883a43a2a06ba90&user_email=833907525a7ed9da50588421f9a328c4ffe67eebcd2f30e04f9a17ca5f772e12

  [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine] 

"Are the crimes of the Israeli state representative of all Jewish people? I personally refuse to believe that is the case." Statement from Pulitzer Prize-winning Palestinian writer and poet from Gaza, Mosab Abu Toha, in response to LeMoyne College's President's email

"As scholars of genocide, we must state plainly that “genocide” is a legal, historical, and analytical concept. Its application may be debated, but the term is not in itself hateful speech. It is especially troubling to suggest so in the present case, where questions concerning genocidal acts are the subject of ongoing international legal proceedings and the destruction of Gaza continues." 

Letter from the Genocide and Holocaust Studies Crisis Network to Le Moyne College in support of Mosab Abu Toha ... READ MORE 

https://substack.com/@mosababutoha/note/c-252340025 

 

Mosab Abu Toha 

@mosababutoha

Pulitzer Prize-winning Palestinian writer and poet from Gaza.

 

More crimes funded by the US on the way

Mosab Abu Toha

Apr 30, 2026

---

Today, the “Israeli Defense Ministry” confirmed that 6,500 tons of U.S. military equipment just arrived at the ports of Ashdod and Haifa.

To put that in perspective, while thousands of tons of ammunition move freely, Gaza’s hospitals are running on empty. If the U.S. administration had both interest and power to save human lives in Gaza, here is what they could address:

🚨The Basics of Survival: Nearly half of all insulin, blood pressure, and asthma medications are gone. People are gasping for air or falling into diabetic shock without help.

🚨The Impossible Choice: 70% of cancer drugs have vanished. Doctors are being forced to stop treatment and tell patients there’s nothing more they can do.

🚨Surgery Without Relief: There is a desperate shortage of anesthesia and painkillers. Surgeries are being performed without the bare essentials—no sutures, no sterile gauze, no relief.... READ MORE  https://substack.com/home/post/p-196011095

 

Mosab Abu Toha   I am so heartbroken.

Israel has just shot my 30-year-old aunt in the chest while she was sitting with her three young children in a school shelter in Jabalia Camp. She is in critical condition; the bullet pierced her chest and exited through her back, devastating her lungs and spleen.

At the moment she was hit, she was holding her one-year-old son. He fell from her lap as she collapsed and was found bleeding from one of his ears.

I just spoke with my uncle, who told me that Israel has been using subsonic bullets lately. He said his sister is the second mother in the camp to be shot in the chest today.

Please pray for her and our family. Her husband was abducted by Israel in November 2024, and we still have no word on his condition.

https://substack.com/@mosababutoha/note/c-251683200

 

Mosab Abu Toha in response to LeMoyne College's President's email to students today*****

This is deeply shameful. I cannot believe what I am reading.

How dare you tell a person who survived a genocide that they cannot speak about it?

On April 15, I had the honor of visiting and speaking at Le Moyne College. I spoke about my lived experience in Gaza, shared the family trees of those killed by Israel, and read my poems. I also played the actual recordings of Israeli airstrikes and artillery shelling that I documented myself while on the ground in Gaza.

This morning, the President of the college sent out an email condemning my use of the word GENOCIDE when describing these crimes. She claimed that using that word is "antisemitic." She stated that she recognized the "real hurt" that the word caused to Jewish students.

Seriously? Are the crimes of the Israeli state representative of all Jewish people? I personally refuse to believe that is the case.

It is utterly ridiculous to begin a letter by stating that your institution welcomes the "free exchange of ideas," only to immediately condemn a speaker, not for sharing abstract ideas, but for sharing his own life. I still carry the physical wounds of a 2009 airstrike on my neck, my forehead, and my cheek. My wife and I have lost over one hundred relatives, most of them children. Some of them have still not been buried.

Who are these students you are talking about... READ MORE 

https://substack.com/@mosababutoha/note/c-250588146 

 

Mosab Abu Toha 

@mosababutoha

Pulitzer Prize-winning Palestinian writer and poet from Gaza.

 https://substack.com/@mosababutoha

 [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

Israeli forces have fired teargas at Palestinian schoolchildren who were staging a sit-in in the occupied West Bank after settlers blocked access to their school.

Palestinian students at an outdoor lesson after Israeli settlers blocked the road leading to their school in the village of Umm al-Khair. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

Israeli forces fire teargas at schoolchildren holding West Bank sit-in

Incident took place on first day back at school in small village, as settlers blocked pupils’ access

The incident took place at Umm al-Khair, a small village in the southern West Bank region of Masafer Yatta.

Schoolchildren there had been due back in class on Monday for the first time in more than 40 days, after lessons were suspended as a result of the Israeli-US attack on Iran on 28 February.

A group of schoolchildren and Palestinian residents had gathered near a barbed wire fence erected by Israeli settlers, which blocked access to the school.

Schoolchildren and some local adults were holding an open-air class as a sit-in to demand access when troops fired the teargas, witnesses said.

“We were sitting and they threw a grenade [teargas canister] at us. I got scared and started screaming and ran away,” said 12-year-old Sarah al-Hathaleen.

“I started crying. A woman hugged me and stayed with me. We were very scared.”... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/13/israeli-forces-fire-teargas-at-schoolchildren-holding-west-bank-sit-in

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies]

1940s, Lydda, Palestine

1940s, Lydda, Palestine

Pals

@palsofnations

 

https://x.com/palsofnations/status/2017496148458561681/photo/1

AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies]

Painted by a Christian girl in Gaza.

Painted by a Christian girl in Gaza.

chunguskitten

@chunguskitten

 

 https://x.com/chunguskitten/status/1999700561986298267/photo/1

AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies]

‘We’re drowning’: Gaza baby dies as storm floods tent encampments Rainwater and sewage flood streets and tents in Gaza as storm brings heavy downpours expected through Friday

By Maha Hussaini and Mohammed al-Hajjar in Gaza City, occupied Palestine

Published date: 11 December 2025

A boy looks out from a tent at a camp sheltering displaced Palestinians, after heavy rains in Gaza City on 11 December 2025 (AFP/Omar al-Qattaa)

A Palestinian infant died from the cold on Thursday as heavy rain across the Gaza Strip continued for a second day, flooding tented encampments and roads.

Eight-month-old Rahaf Abu Jazar died in Khan Younis after rainwater leaked into her family’s tent during overnight storms. 

Her family was among hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians awoken in the night as torrential downpours inundated the makeshift shelters they rely on for protection.

Gaza’s war-damaged sewage system also overflowed under the heavy rain.

“We are drowning in rainwater mixed with sewage,” said Amal Eleiwa from Gaza City.

Originally from the Shujaiya neighbourhood, Amal's home was destroyed in the war, forcing her to flee from shelter to shelter at least 10 times.

“Water comes in from both above and below. Our blankets are soaked – so are our children,” she said. 

With their home destroyed, the family of 10, including seven children, was living in a single tent. 

“We have nowhere else to go.”

The heavy rain also caused at least three buildings to collapse, according to local media.

Moamen Riyadji rented a damaged house just before the storm, after warnings that it could be catastrophic for displaced people in tents.

He tried to cover the partly open roof, damaged in Israeli strikes, but flooding still reached more than 15 centimetres.

“Last night was some of the worst we have experienced. We couldn’t even sleep,” he told Middle East Eye. 

“God knows what will happen to us. But if things stay like this, I may have to find another place – maybe a tent would be safer.”

Storm Byron has hit Palestine and Israel earlier this week and is expected to last until Friday, with the heaviest downpours still to come.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) warned on Wednesday that low temperatures and heavy rains place vulnerable populations at extreme risk, particularly newborns.

In a post on X on Thursday, the UN Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa) said winter rains are "bringing new hardships" across the besieged enclave. 

“Flooded streets and soaked tents are making already dire living conditions even more dangerous,” it said. "Cold, overcrowded and unsanitary environments heighten the risk of illness and infection."

Worn-out tents 

An estimated 1.5 million people live in worn-out tents across the Gaza Strip, displaced after nearly 80 percent of structures were destroyed by Israel in two years of genocidal war.

Last month, heavy rains destroyed around 13,000 tents....  READ MORE   https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/palestinian-baby-dies-storm-floods-tent-encampments-gaza

  AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies]