On 20 April, Al-Haq submitted an urgent appeal to UN special procedures concerning the alarming and escalating pattern of killings of Palestinian children by the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The urgent appeal highlights a consistent and systematic use of unlawful lethal force against minors, raising serious concerns of breaches of international humanitarian law and international human rights law.
The number of Palestinian children killed in the West Bank has risen sharply in recent years, from 17 in 2021 to 36 in 2022, 121 in 2023, 92 in 2024, and 54 in 2025. Since October 2023, at least 227 children have been killed in the West Bank, with additional cases documented in early 2026. Between November 2025 and March 2026 alone, Al-Haq documented the killing of 15 children in incidents that exhibit strikingly similar patterns.
These cases occurred across multiple locations and contexts, including towns, refugee camps, agricultural areas, and near military checkpoints. Despite differing circumstances, the incidents consistently involve the use of live ammunition without warning, targeting of vital body parts, absence of imminent threat, and obstruction or delay of medical assistance. In several cases, the bodies of the deceased children have been withheld, compounding the suffering of their families.
The victims, children under the age of 18, were engaged in activities that did not pose an immediate threat to life, these included low-level confrontations such as stone-throwing, as well as routine civilian activities like leaving places of worship or working on agricultural land. The field investigations, based on eyewitness testimonies, medical reports, and site inspections, indicate that lethal force was frequently used as a first resort rather than a last measure.
Al-Haq’s analysis concludes that these killings constitute arbitrary deprivation of life and may amount to extrajudicial executions. Moreover, the repeated and consistent nature of these acts suggests they are not isolated incidents, but part of a broader pattern of widespread or systematic attacks against Palestinian civilians. As such, they may rise to the level of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and, when considered in the broader context of the intent to destroy the Palestinian group, may contribute to acts amounting to genocide.
Al-Haq calls for immediate, independent, and impartial investigations into these incidents and urges the international community to take concrete steps to ensure accountability. There is an urgent need to review and reform rules of engagement, guarantee unimpeded access to medical care, and end practices that enable the unlawful targeting of children.
The protection of Palestinian children is a legal imperative, and continued inaction risks further entrenching a culture of impunity, entrenching Israel’s settler colonial apartheid regime, and perpetuating grave violations of international law.