Israel killing Palestinian children in West Bank at highest rate since 1967: Report

Israeli rights group B'Tselem has released a new report documenting around 60 cases in which Israeli forces killed Palestinian children and teenagers in the occupied West Bank in 2025.

From October 7, 2023, when Israel launched its genocidal war on the besieged Gaza Strip, to 28 June 2026, Israeli forces killed 1,086 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East al-Quds. 

At least 241 of those killed were children and teenagers.

In addition, Israel continues to withhold the bodies of 18 of the 54 children and teenagers it killed in the West Bank in 2025.

The majority of these children were playing outside when they were shot dead.

In one case, two-year-old Layla al-Khatib was sitting in her mother’s lap inside her family home when an Israeli soldier shot her in the head in January 2025.

The report also reveals that in nearly one-quarter of the documented cases from 2025, Israeli forces deliberately prevented medical teams or local residents from reaching wounded children and teenagers, blocking life-saving assistance.

Nearly one in every four Palestinians killed by Israel in the West Bank during this period was a minor. This represents the highest rate of child and teenager killings in the West Bank since Israel occupied the territory in 1967.

According to B'Tselem, these killings are not the result of isolated mistakes or rogue violations of military orders.

They stem from an official Israeli policy that deliberately broadens the conditions under which soldiers may open fire, including on children, and provides full backing to those who use lethal force.

“The system does not merely back the shooters – it effectively gives them a license to kill,” said B'Tselem Executive Director Yuli Novak.

She pointed to recent remarks by Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth, head of the army’s Central Command in the West Bank, who boasted that “we are killing like we haven’t killed since 1967.”

Bluth also claimed that “96% of those killed were involved in terrorism,” a statement B'Tselem dismissed as a “blatant lie.”

The group’s analysis of the minors killed in 2025 found no evidence that any of them posed a threat or belonged to any militant group.

Despite the scale of the killings, B'Tselem is not aware of a single indictment filed in Israeli-occupied territories since October 2023 against any soldier or settler for the killing of Palestinians in the West Bank, including cases involving children and teenagers.

Lost childhoods: How Palestinian children are growing up amid violence and grief

In the occupied West Bank, Palestinian children are facing a growing reality of loss — with many losing parents, others injured, arrested, or even killed amid ongoing violence.

Data from the Israeli rights group Yesh Din confirms that no Israeli has been indicted for killing a Palestinian since October 2023.

A separate UN independent international commission of inquiry report released last week concluded that “Israeli authorities and forces have deliberately targeted Palestinian children,” amounting to genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in Gaza, and war crimes in the West Bank.

The aggression has not been limited to Gaza, where more than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed (including 21,000 children).

In the West Bank, Israel has loosened its rules of engagement and entrenched a system of impunity.

By failing to hold Israel accountable for its mass killings in Gaza, the international community has effectively granted it a green light to pursue the same deadly policy in the West Bank.

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