as well as war crimes in the occupied West Bank. A new report alleges that Israeli authorities and security forces have "deliberately carried out acts inflicting death and severe bodily and mental harm on hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children", and that the killings continued even after last October's ceasefire in Gaza. The commission says it has reasonable grounds to conclude that those acts "form part of a deliberate strategy to destroy the future of the Palestinians in Gaza by targeting their children". Israel's foreign ministry said it "utterly rejects" the commission's report, calling it a "libellous sham" and "a propaganda piece as outrageous as its previous ones".

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the unprecedented Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage. At least 73,035 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, including more than 21,280 children, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures are seen as reliable by the UN. The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel was established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2021 to investigate alleged violations of international humanitarian and human rights law. Its three-member expert panel does not officially speak for the UN. (BBC)