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STORY: GENEVA / OPT COMMISSION OF INQUIRY
TRT: 3:10
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 23 JUNE 2026, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Wide shot, exterior, Palais des Nations
2. Wide shot, press briefing room
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Srinivasan Muralidhar, Chair of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel:
“Today, the Commission has released a 100-page report documenting violations and crimes committed by Israel against Palestinian children in the occupied Palestinian territory since 7th October 2023 until 31st March 2026.”
4. Wide shot, press briefing room
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Srinivasan Muralidhar, Chair of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel:
“Children are being killed mainly in two ways. One, through airstrikes using high-yield explosives with wide area effects. And second, using quadcopters, drones, and sniper rifles that specifically target and kill children. To their head and upper body.”
6. Wide shot, press briefing room
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Chris Sidoti, Commissioner of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel:
“Five teenagers, a girl, and four boys, all aged 16 or 17, went early that Saturday morning to Zikim Beach. Presumably they were having an early morning at the beach, going there maybe to swim, at least enjoying themselves. When a Hamas boat arrived at the beach and gunfire commenced. The five teenagers fled to a toilet block seeking safety there. They were joined by an adult fisherman and also by an Israeli soldier who sought to defend them. Unsuccessfully. The soldier was killed, the fisherman was killed, and all five children. A girl, four boys were killed.”
8. Wide shot, press briefing room
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Chris Sidoti, Commissioner of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel:
“A 14-year-old boy, he was shot by an Israeli military patrol as he was leaving his house. The patrol had been in the area, but at the time there had been no fighting taking place. He was shot, badly injured and was lying on the ground. He was surrounded by a company of Israeli soldiers who were chatting and probably some of them smoking. Over a period of 45 minutes, while this 14-year-old boy bled to death.”
10. Wide shot, press briefing room
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Chris Sidoti, Commissioner of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel:
“His mother was watching from the house that he'd just left, and as the child sought to leave the house, so as the mother sought to leave the house to go to the child to rescue him or attend to him, she was shot at by the Israeli military patrol.”
12. Wide shot, press briefing room
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Chris Sidoti, Commissioner of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel:
“There can be no doubt in anyone who reads today's report that every international legal norm has been violated by the actions of the Israeli authorities towards Palestinian children and they need to be held accountable.”
14. Wide shot, press briefing room
Israeli authorities and security forces have deliberately targeted Palestinian children, resulting in genocide and atrocity crimes in the Gaza Strip and war crimes in the West Bank, a UN independent commission of inquiry said in its latest report released on Tuesday (23 Jun).
“The evidence shows that Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted and killed by the Israeli security forces,” said Srinivasan Muralidhar, chair of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel.
The report refers to the period following Hamas’ invasion of Israel in late 2023, which resulted in 1,200 deaths and 250 taken hostage, and the subsequent war Israel waged against Gaza that has to date killed more than 70,000 Palestinians in the besieged and occupied territory.
“Even after the October 2025 ceasefire, children continue to be killed and seriously injured, with continued disregard by Israel for the ceasefire and for the protection owed to Palestinian children under international law,” he said.
Last year, the commission concluded that “Israel had committed genocide against the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip, found that the intense scale and systematic nature of the Israeli military operations have continued, resulting in unprecedented death, injury and trauma of Palestinian children.”
Here are some findings in the commission’s latest report:
• Severe physical and mental injuries, mass trauma, orphanhood, separation, disability, repeated displacements, starvation and the collapse of education and healthcare have erased childhood and will continue to affect children in Gaza throughout their lives
• Palestinian children have been arrested and subjected to torture and other severe forms of mistreatment in Israeli prisons and detention facilities, with no information on their whereabouts
• Israeli security forces have used sexual violence against children as part of the collective shaming and oppression, entrenched within a prolonged, ethnic, gendered and intergenerational pattern of occupation and hostilities
Also highlighted in the report was the widespread devastation of critical infrastructure that served children. Israel’s targeting of neonatal and maternity care centres in Gaza have directly harmed the survival of newborns and Palestinians’ reproductive future.
In addition, starvation imposed by Israel through blockade and siege have further caused the death of Palestinian children and severely impacted the health of many others.
Dismantling and destruction of orphanages and education facilities in Gaza and the West Bank have obstructed cognitive, social and emotional care and development and disrupted the foundations of Palestinian society, the report stated.
Palestinian children have suffered immense psychological harm, having been stripped of any sense of safety and future, according to the report. Such mental harm is an intergenerational condition, producing a distinctive “occupied psyche” in which the freedom to play, imagine, hope and develop an identity has been eroded.
“Even if the bombs and guns fall silent in Gaza and West Bank, Palestinian children will not simply recover overnight,” Mr. Muralidhar said. “The destruction of their health, education and development is irreversible.”
By targeting children, Israel is eroding the foundational structure of Palestinian society, weakening the demographic vitality and overall capacity of the Palestinian people to sustain and exercise its right to determine its future as a people.
“The protection, care and survival of Palestinian children are inseparable from the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination,” Mr. Muralidhar said. “By targeting children, Israel is attacking the very capacity of the Palestinian people to exist and to determine their future.”
In its latest report, the independent commission called for Israel to cease committing violations and crimes against and affecting Palestinian children and for the end of Israel’s continuing presence in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in compliance with the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Having identified military units within the Israeli security forces responsible for killing and injuring of Palestinian children, the commission issued recommendations to Israel and to all Member States to ensure accountability for such crimes.
“The international community as a whole must uphold their international legal obligations and call for an end to the hostilities, for Israel to end its occupation and to prioritise accountability and access to justice for victims as an integral component of any political process, grounded in the meaningful participation of Palestinians, including children,” the commission stated.
Member States of the UN Human Rights Council established the commission in 2021 to “investigate, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel, all alleged violations of international humanitarian law and all alleged violations and abuses of international human rights law leading up to and since 13 April 2021.”
