Were Gaza Children Deliberately Targeted?

According to the commission, more than 20,000 Palestinian children have been killed between October 2023 and October 2025. We have witnessed more than 20,000 children who have been killed. More than 44,000 have been injured. And more than 44,000 children have been injured. Thousands are still missing or buried under rubble, and 97 percent of Gaza's schools are either destroyed or fully damaged, and none of this stopped even after the ceasefire. The commission documented children's deaths in the months following the ceasefire as well. The commission found indisputable evidence with regards to the deliberate targeted killing of Palestinian children, including since the October 2025 ceasefire. Many of these deaths occurred around a shifting military line known as the Yellow Line. But the Yellow Line was not just a name. In November 2025, near Khan Younis, two brothers, ten and nine years old, were collecting firewood for their father. Their father was in a wheelchair, and the house needed firewood to burn. Then an Israeli drone struck. Both brothers were killed on the spot. Israeli security forces later said they saw two suspects crossing the Yellow Line, moving toward the military, and so treated them as an immediate threat. But the commission found the children were more than 300 metres from the soldiers' rifles. From that distance, how can two children, ten and nine years old, look like an imminent threat? Addressing the Council, Justice Muralidhar said the commission found evidence pointing toward a clear pattern — meaning Palestinian children were deliberately targeted. The commission says these were not separate incidents but a repeated pattern, the accountability for which should be determined under international law.