UN condemns child death toll from Israel's West Bank operations

GENEVA: The United Nations condemned on Tuesday the toll from "escalating" Israeli military operations and settler attacks in the occupied West Bank on children, with 70 Palestinian children killed since the start of 2025.

"Children are paying an intolerable price for escalating military operations and settler attacks across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem," UN children's agency spokesman James Elder told reporters.

Since the start of 2025, when Israel began a large-scale military operation in the West Bank, "at least one Palestinian child has been killed on average every single week" there, adding that another 850 children had been injured during that period.

"Most of those killed or wounded were done by live ammunition," he said.

Israeli forces were responsible for a full 93 percent of the deaths, Elder said, highlighting that the scaled-up military operations had come amid "historic levels of settler attacks."

According to the UN, March 2026 saw the highest number of Palestinians injured by Israeli settlers in at least 20 years, he pointed out.

"Documented incidents include children shot, stabbed, children beaten and children pepper-sprayed," Elder pointed out.

He stressed that such incidents were taking place against the backdrop of the "steady dismantling of the conditions children need to survive and grow."

"Homes are demolished, education is destroyed, water systems are attacked, access to healthcare is obstructed, movement is restricted," he said.

Mass displacement

At the same time, there has been a dramatic spike in the number of barriers and restrictions imposed across the West Bank, meaning children in the Palestinian territory "are routinely cut off from schools, from hospitals and other essential services."

All of this has caused mass displacement, with more than 2,500 Palestinians -- 1,100 of them children -- displaced in just the first four months of this year in the West Bank.

"That surpasses the total displacement recorded in 2025," Elder pointed out.

Since the war in Gaza erupted in October 2023, after Hamas's attack in Israel, violence has also surged in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967 in contravention of international law.

Israeli soldiers or settlers have killed at least 1,070 Palestinians, including many militants, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian Authority figures.

Official Israeli figures meanwhile show that at least 46 Israelis, including soldiers and civilians, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations in the same period.