A United Nations Commission of Inquiry chaired by former Indian judge Srinivasan Muralidhar has claimed that there is solid evidence that the Israeli military deliberately and systematically killed more than 20,000 Palestinian children during military operations carried out in Gaza between October 2023 and October 2025.
Speaking at a press conference in Geneva on Tuesday, Justice Muralidhar, former Chief Justice of the Odisha High Court, said that the commission had found irrefutable evidence of the “deliberate and targeted killings” of Palestinian children, including incidents that occurred after the October 2025 ceasefire.
In its 100-page report, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry stated that violence in Gaza between 7 October 2023 and 7 October 2025 resulted in the deaths of at least 20,179 children and injuries to 44,143 children. During this period, children accounted for 30 percent of those killed and 26 percent of those injured.
The UN inquiry commission investigated violations and crimes committed against Palestinian children from 7 October 2023 onward, including severe physical and psychological harm inflicted by Israeli security forces. On the same day, Hamas attacked Israel. Approximately 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s attack on southern Israel, and Hamas also took 251 people hostage.
Muralidhar said, “The commission found solid evidence of the deliberate and targeted killing of Palestinian children. This includes incidents occurring after the October 2025 ceasefire. Evidence was also found of torture of children, inhuman and degrading treatment (including sexual and gender-based violence), and the targeting of critical infrastructure essential for children—such as orphanages, healthcare facilities, and educational institutions.” He said that children were killed and harmed on a massive and systematic scale between 7 October 2023 and October 2025.
The commission also investigated the sharp increase in violence against Palestinian children by Israeli settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The report stated that as of 7 October 2023, nearly half of Gaza’s population was under the age of 18. “These children had already spent their entire lives under the shadow of the Israeli blockade and occupation and had repeatedly experienced conflict and trauma.”
The commission highlighted the increase in the number of children killed compared with previous rounds of conflict. It noted that during the fighting in 2008–2009 and 2014, children accounted for approximately 24 percent of conflict-related deaths. The report stated that by October 2025, the children killed in Gaza represented nearly two percent of its population of 1.2 million children. During this period, at least 5,031 children under the age of five were killed, including 1,029 children under one year old and approximately 420 newborn infants.
Justice Muralidhar said that the commission concluded that “Israel targets children in order to weaken the vitality of the population and deprive the Palestinian people of their right to self-determination.”
He said, “Our report concludes that violence carried out by settlers in the West Bank is a means of implementing Israeli government policies. In this, both the government and violent groups work together toward the same strategic objective: the unlawful expansion of territory.”
Muralidhar said that the report also concluded that Hamas has repeatedly committed serious abuses against Palestinians in Gaza. Hamas has conducted campaigns of repression, torture, and unlawful killings against Palestinians under the cover of Israeli military operations and the widespread collapse of law and order.
Israel, meanwhile, rejected the inquiry report, calling it “false and fabricated.” Israel stated, “The Commission of Inquiry is fundamentally a flawed mechanism whose purpose is not to uncover the truth but to isolate and vilify Israel.”
Responding to the report, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said that it completely ignores Israeli children who were brutally killed, abducted, and targeted by Hamas, while overlooking Hamas’s reprehensible use of Palestinian children as human shields and instruments of war. The ministry said there is no credible method to verify the commission’s claims.
