A new report by Israeli human rights organization B Tselem has documented the killing of 235 Palestinian children and teenagers by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank since October 7, 2023, describing the death rate as unprecedented since Israel’s military occupation began in 1967.
The report, released this week and picked up by AFP and international outlets, found that children and teenagers accounted for nearly a quarter of the 1,086 Palestinians killed in the West Bank between October 7, 2023, and June 28, 2026. B Tselem documented 54 individual cases of Palestinian children and teenagers killed by Israeli forces in 2025 alone.
In the 17 years between 2005 and 2021, an average of roughly one Palestinian child or teenager was killed by Israeli forces every month, according to B Tselem. Since October 7, 2023, that average has jumped to approximately seven per month, a sevenfold increase that reflects both the broader escalation of violence and changes to Israeli military open-fire policies.
Families Left Without Answers
Among the cases documented is that of nine-year-old Mohammed al-Hallaq, killed by an Israeli army bullet last October in the village of Al-Rihiya in the southern West Bank. His mother, Alia al-Hallaq, told AFP she still speaks of herself as a mother of five, not four.
“I still haven’t accepted the idea of the loss. I often sit in the courtyard of the house and look at Mohammed’s grave below, and I cry while making sure that my children don’t see me,” she said.
Another case involved seven-month-old Sam Abu Haikal, shot in the face by Israeli troops in the West Bank city of Hebron in June 2026. The army said one of its soldiers had opened fire on “uninvolved civilians” after their vehicle accelerated toward troops. The family disputes this account, saying the car had stopped before shooting began.
Of the 54 children killed in 2025, B Tselem found that 13 were shot during incidents involving stone throwing, while at least 21 were not involved in any confrontation with Israeli forces at the time of their deaths. The youngest victim documented was just two years old, with the majority aged between 14 and 17.
No Accountability
B Tselem said no indictments had been filed against Israeli soldiers or settlers in connection with any of the killings during the period examined, pointing to what it described as a system of near-total impunity.
“The widespread, unprecedented killing of Palestinian children and teenagers in the West Bank is the result of a broader Israeli policy that enables the killing of Palestinians with virtually no accountability,” B Tselem Executive Director Yuli Novak said.
The report’s findings were amplified by Haaretz reporting that the Israeli military commander for the West Bank, Major General Avi Bluth, made private remarks boasting that Israel was “killing like we haven’t since 1967.” Bluth, himself an Israeli settler, also reportedly praised soldiers for killing 1,500 Palestinians since October 2023, describing those killed as “terrorists.”
“When the military commander of the area boasts that Israel is killing Palestinians likewehaven killed since 1967,’ he is confirming exactly that: the system does not merely back those who pull the trigger; it effectively grants them a license to kill,” Novak said.
B Tselem also documented cases in which Israeli forces prevented medical teams or Palestinian residents from reaching wounded children, an obstruction that occurred in nearly one-quarter of the cases examined.
Bodies Withheld From Families
Israel has continued its policy of withholding the bodies of Palestinians killed by its forces. As of June 6, Israeli authorities were still holding the bodies of 18 of the 54 Palestinian children and teenagers killed in 2025, according to B Tselem. Rights groups have condemned the practice as compounding the suffering of families prevented from burying their children.
The Palestinian Authority’s Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission, a government institution, reported 250 such deaths over the same period, a slightly higher figure than B Tselem’s count, which the rights group attributed to differences in documentation methodology.
The sharp rise in killings of Palestinian children began before October 7, 2023. B Tselem said the number rose sharply in 2022 following changes to Israeli military open-fire policies governing the use of live ammunition, including in incidents involving stone throwing.
B Tselem said the killing of Palestinian children in the West Bank should also be viewed alongside Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, where tens of thousands of Palestinian children have been killed, according to health authorities in the territory. The West Bank figures, however, document deaths in a context that predates the current war and reflect what the organization describes as a systematic policy of lethal force against minors.
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