Israel is killing at least one Palestinian child every week in the West Bank

There is little hope that their escalating violence in the West Bank will stop until the criminal Israeli state is stopped by force.

One of the defining features of the ongoing Israeli genocide in Palestine is the rapacity with which the Israelis have slaughtered Palestinian children. At least 20,000 children in Gaza alone have been shot, beheaded, incinerated, or starved to death since October 7. A further 50,000 children have been orphaned or separated from their families. The genocide survivors are enduring extreme hardship in their daily lives, as Israelis continue to kill with total impunity and maintain strict control over the aid entering the besieged Gaza Strip. One child was cut in half after being run over by an Israeli tank at the start of the so-called ceasefire last October; multiple infants froze to death in the biting winter cold; and children have been shot to death for the crime of approaching the imaginary “yellow line,” which keeps snaking westward in complete contravention of the “ceasefire” terms.

Israeli barbarism against Palestinian children is not limited to the Gaza Strip. In the occupied West Bank, too, the Israelis have been slaughtering Palestinian children as though there were no tomorrow. Indeed, Israel’s top commander in the occupied West Bank admitted as much when he said: “We are killing like we have not killed since 1967.”

“Between January 2025 and today, at least one Palestinian child has been killed, on average, every week,” UNICEF spokesperson James Elder revealed on Tuesday.

“That is, 70 Palestinian children killed in this timeframe. Ninety-three per cent of these were killed by Israeli forces. A further 850 children were injured. Most of those children killed or wounded were by live ammunition.

“All this comes amid historic levels of settler attacks. OCHA [United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs] said last month that March 2026 saw the highest number of Palestinians injured by settler attacks in the past 20 years, and we are seeing attacks become increasingly more coordinated. Documented incidents include children shot, stabbed, beaten, and pepper sprayed.”

Elder pointed out that the attacks against Palestinian children are coordinated and systemic and constitute a clear pattern aimed at depriving them of education, safety, healthcare, and a dignified life.

“These are not isolated incidents — they point to a sustained pattern of the worst kinds of violations of children’s rights, as well as attacks on children’s homes, on their schools, and on the water they rely on. What is unfolding is not only an escalation in violence against Palestinian children; it is the steady dismantling of the conditions children need to survive and grow,” Elder said in a press briefing.

“Homes are demolished. Education is attacked. Water systems are destroyed. Access to healthcare is obstructed. Movement is restricted. Over the past 30 months, more than 900 additional barriers and restrictions have been imposed across the West Bank. As a result, children in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are routinely cut off from schools, hospitals, and other essential services, as movement becomes increasingly restricted or denied all together.”

Elder highlighted the case of an 8-year-old whose house had been demolished months earlier, forcing him to sleep outdoors. However, the Israelis were not done with him. They attacked the child again, and his mother had both her arms broken while trying to protect his four-month-old sibling:

Ezzaldin, 8, was asleep when settlers attacked his village. His family’s home had been demolished two months earlier, so Ezzaldin was sleeping outside. Beaten with a piece of wood, he was hospitalised for head injuries. His mother had both her arms broken as she sought to protect her four-month-old baby, by placing her arms between her baby and the attacker’s club.

There has been a consistent attempt to make it difficult for Palestinian children to continue their education through relentless attacks on educational infrastructure. “There have been 99 documented education-related incidents in 2026 alone, including the killing, injury and detention of students, the demolition of schools, military use of school buildings, and denial of access,” Elder added.

The UNICEF spokesman also pointed out that nearly 350 children from the West Bank remain incarcerated in the notorious Israeli rape and torture dungeons, where they are provided with no special protection and are tortured incessantly.

“The latest data indicates 347 Palestinian children from the West Bank are being held in Israeli military detention for alleged security-related offenses — the highest number in eight years,” Elder said. “Alarmingly, more than half of these children — 180 — are held under administrative detention and without the required procedural safeguards, including detention without regular access to legal counsel and the right to challenge the detention.”

At least one child from the West Bank has been killed by the Israelis as a result of severe torture and starvation. Children abducted from the Gaza Strip recounted harrowing abuse. They kept suffering from recurring nightmares weeks after release.

Palestinian human rights organisations have recorded escalating violence against children in the West Bank in recent months. Last month, Al-Haq meticulously detailed the murder of 15 children, noting that the children posed little threat to the occupation forces before being killed.

Israel escalates killings of Palestinian children in the West Bank

“The victims, all minors, were killed in situations mainly involving low-level confrontations, such as stone throwing, or during routine civilian activities, including leaving places of worship, working on family land, or moving through their communities,” the report by Al-Haq said. “In several cases, the children were shot from a distance away from IOF positions, without posing any immediate threat to life. Other incidents involved tear gas used in a way that led to fatal outcomes, or the blocking of access to urgent, life-saving medical care.”

For more than two and a half years the world has sat idly by as the Israelis have slaughtered tens of thousands of children in broad daylight while their ghastly crimes have been streamed live. It did not diminish their barbarism one iota. There is little hope that their escalating violence in the West Bank will stop until the criminal Israeli state is stopped by force. Appeals to morality and conscience are wasted on the immoral and the unconscionable.

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