UN condemns child death toll from Israel's West Bank operations
- Last updated: May 12, 2026 | 15:15
The United Nations condemned on Tuesday the toll from swelling Israeli military operations and settler attacks in the occupied West Bank on children, with 70 Palestinian children killed since early 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 January 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, he said, adding that another 850 children had been injured during that period.
"Most of those killed or wounded were done by live ammunition," he said.
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 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.
Children shot, stabbed, beaten
Elder said that Israeli forces were responsible for a full 93 per cent of the children killed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since January 2025, but also pointed to "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 said, pointing to "documented incidents (including) children shot, stabbed... beaten".
Elder, who recently returned from the West Bank, told the story of one eight-year-old boy, who was asleep when settlers attacked his village.
"His family home had been demolished two months earlier, so he was sleeping outside," he said, adding that the boy "was beaten with a piece of wood and hospitalised for head injuries".
The boy's mother, meanwhile "had both her arms broken when she reached across to protect her four-month-old baby", he said.
Elder highlighted that the violent attacks 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.
A dramatic spike in the number of barriers and restrictions imposed across the West Bank meanwhile meant children were "routinely cut off from schools, from hospitals and other essential services", he said.
'Walk through fear'
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.
Education was also "under sustained assault", he said, with "99 documented education-related incidents this year alone, including the killing, injury and detention of students, the demolition of schools, military use of school buildings and denial of access".
And when children walk to school, he said, they "don't walk in a straight line because they're constantly looking over their shoulder."
"It's become a walk through fear."
There has also been a sharp rise in arrests and detention of children, Elder said.
The latest data, he said, indicated that 347 Palestinian children from the West Bank were being held in Israeli military detention for alleged security-related offences -- "the highest number in eight years".
Elder said UNICEF was calling on Israeli authorities to "take immediate and decisive action to prevent further killing and maiming of Palestinian children and to protect their homes, their schools and their access to water, in line with international law".
Other countries with influence should also "use their leverage to ensure that international law is respected", he said.
Agence France-Presse