Human Lives Human Rights: The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) revealed in a report that 78 Palestinian children under the age of 18 were killed in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank in 2021.
A report released by the Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCIP), on the occasion of Palestinian Children’s Day, stressed that 61 children were killed in the Gaza Strip and 17 children were killed in the West Bank in 2021.
In a report published on the Hebrew-language website Mekomit late last year, Khalid Kazmar, director of the Palestinian branch of the Movement for the Protection of the World’s Children, wrote: “2021 has been the worst year for Palestinian children since Israel launched the 58-day war in Gaza in 2014.”
In May 2021, hostilities in Gaza dramatically escalated. Over 11 days, 261 Palestinians were killed, including 41 women, 67 children, and three people with disabilities, most in Israeli strikes. At least 130 were civilians. Over 2,200 Palestinians were injured, according a report by the OHCHR.
According to the report, the Israeli military has in all cases killed Palestinian children without any permission, so that these cases can become a dominant practice for extrajudicial execution operation, because Israeli security forces shoot at Palestinian children solely for the purpose of killing them.
This statistic becomes even more significant when we consider that 2,000 Palestinian children have been killed by the Israeli military since 2000. For example, in the 58-day war in Gaza alone, Israel killed more than 400 Palestinian children.
Israel’s behavior in killing Palestinian children violates Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the violation of Article 5 of the same Declaration, and the violation of all provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Palestinian activist groups have repeatedly said that Israel’s use of administrative detention centers for children is a “bankrupt tactic.” Several UN agencies have also criticized Israel’s incarceration practices, yet no action has been taken against them.
