Ramallah, December 19, 2024—Palestinian children faced an unprecedented assault on their lives and futures as Israel’s genocidal campaign escalated across the occupied Palestinian territory this year.
Israeli forces killed and maimed thousands of Palestinian children and forcibly displaced even more, while deliberate Israeli policies of starvation and medical deprivation created catastrophic humanitarian conditions. Israeli attacks erased entire families in Gaza, famine and disease spread under siege, and Palestinian children endured relentless airstrikes, forced displacement, and trauma.
In the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Israeli forces intensified home demolitions and detentions marked by systemic torture and abuse. Israeli forces and settlers killed, on average, one Palestinian child every four days in the occupied West Bank in 2024, an escalation made possible by decades of impunity.
“It is unthinkable that Israel’s genocide has continued for more than a year,” said Khaled Quzmar, general director at Defense for Children International - Palestine. “At every turn, Israeli forces are violating Palestinian children’s rights and systematically eroding their chance at a safe and healthy future. Palestinian children have the right to grow up and it is a disgrace that world leaders are permitting Israeli forces to kill children at such an unprecedented rate.”
Palestinian children, whether in Gaza or the West Bank, were stripped of their rights to safety, education, and health by Israeli forces and authorities. Through field investigations and testimonies, Defense for Children International - Palestine (DCIP) highlights the urgent need for accountability to protect Palestinian children and secure their stolen futures.
Mass killing, starvation, and lifelong trauma in Gaza
In 2024, Israel’s genocidal campaign against Palestinians in Gaza reached catastrophic proportions. Relentless aerial bombardments, ground invasions, and siege tactics deliberately targeted Palestinian civilians, leaving children to suffer the most.
More than 17,492 Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli military forces in Gaza since October 7, 2023, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. The Ministry of Health tracks fatalities from direct attacks, and the true death toll is much higher as many Palestinians, including children, are dying of disease and starvation, and thousands remain under the rubble of destroyed buildings.
Thousands of Palestinian children have been critically injured, maimed, or left with permanent disabilities as a result of Israeli attacks. Their injuries are not healing due to the destruction of the health care system and lack of food, clean water, and sanitation, according to documentation collected by DCIP.
Hospitals in Gaza, already crippled by Israel’s 17-year siege, have collapsed under the weight of thousands of injured Palestinian children and families. With dwindling medical supplies and destroyed infrastructure, hundreds of children endured amputations without anesthesia, often screaming in pain during emergency surgeries.
The destruction of Gaza’s infrastructure amplified the suffering. Israel’s blockade of food, water, and humanitarian aid maintains famine conditions.
Newborn babies and children with disabilities are at heightened risk for malnutrition and dehydration, which became evident as the first Palestinian children starved to death in early 2024. Two-month-old Nahed Haboush and three-month-old Anwar Al-Khudari, starved to death earlier this year because their mothers, weakened by hunger, could not breastfeed, and no formula was available, caused by Israel’s deliberate policy of aid and food deprivation, according to documentation collected by DCIP.
Gaza’s children were not only killed but systematically erased by Israel’s campaign of genocide. Entire Palestinian families were obliterated under the rubble of bombed homes, while some 35,000 children have lost one or both parents, according to the Governmental Media Office. Some Palestinian children, like 14-year-old Ziad, are unaccompanied in Egypt or other countries, awaiting reunification with their families.
Diseases like chickenpox, scabies, and polio surged in overcrowded displacement camps, where stagnant sewage and contaminated water became breeding grounds for epidemics. Palestinian health officials confirmed the re-emergence of polio in Gaza for the first time in 25 years, and preventable illnesses like hepatitis and skin infections spread rapidly due to the Israeli blockade of medical supplies.
In 2024, Israeli forces systematically used Palestinian children as human shields, a grave violation of international law. DCIP captured testimony from children like 12-year-old Moayad and 16-year-old Hazem, who were stripped, tied, and placed in front of Israeli tanks during aid distributions, enduring physical abuse and deprivation.
In December, DCIP projected a call to action across several locations in London for Human Rights Day. The projection, which included testimony from Dunia Abu Mohsen, a 12-year-old Palestinian girl killed by Israeli tank shelling in her hospital bed last year, called for an arms embargo and urgent accountability.
Her name was Dunia Abu Mohsen. She survived an Israeli airstrike that killed her family in Gaza, only to die days later when Israel shelled the hospital she was recovering in. We illuminated her story across London for #HumanRightsDay. This is genocide. pic.twitter.com/wjHP4MhKHX
— Defense for Children (@DCIPalestine) December 10, 2024
In January, Khaled Quzmar, general director at DCIP, testified in United States federal court to the impact of the Biden administration’s complicity in the Israeli genocide in Gaza. The lawsuit, DCIP v. Biden, et al., seeks to hold the U.S. administration accountable for its role in providing funding, weapons, and diplomatic support to the Israeli government and military during its ongoing assault on Palestinians in Gaza. The case was ultimately dismissed, and an appellate hearing upheld the dismissal, citing the political question doctrine.
Home demolitions, settler violence, and live ammunition killings surge in the West Bank
In the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Israeli forces escalated their attacks against Palestinian families throughout 2024, employing systematic violence, home demolitions, and collective punishment as tools of oppression.
Israeli forces and settlers killed 90 Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in 2024, according to documentation collected by DCIP.
DCIP published a report, “Targeting Childhood: Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank,” in September that details and analyzes Palestinian child fatalities in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, between October 7, 2023, and July 31, 2024. The report’s findings indicated that Israeli forces routinely targeted Palestinian children with live ammunition and aerial attacks, prevented ambulances and paramedics from reaching wounded children, and confiscated children’s bodies in violation of international law.
Israeli settler violence continues to surge with impunity. Israeli settlers, often protected or accompanied by soldiers, routinely attacked Palestinian families, torching homes, vehicles, and farmland. This violence displaced thousands of Palestinians, with children bearing the brunt of the psychological trauma.
Israeli military incursions became a near-daily reality in refugee camps like Jenin, Nour Shams, and Tulkarem, where heavy bombardments and intense ground operations flattened entire neighborhoods. Palestinian families were forced to flee under Israeli fire, only to return to find their homes reduced to rubble. In Jenin, the Shalabi family’s children watched in terror as their bedroom collapsed after nearby missile strikes, while the Al-Rawagh family in Jericho lost their home to a demolition carried out without warning. In one case, Israeli forces bulldozed a kindergarten in Nour Shams camp, violating children’s right to education.
The Israeli “permit regime” continues to systematically deny Palestinians the ability to build homes, particularly in Area C. Families like the Totah family in East Jerusalem were forced to self-demolish their apartments, facing impossible financial penalties if they refused. The Ja’afar family, who spent years navigating Israel’s bureaucratic barriers, were ultimately forced to tear down their home themselves, leaving their daughters displaced.
Israel’s policy of collective punishment, demolishing homes, infrastructure, and communities, constitutes a war crime under international law. For Palestinian children, these demolitions represent more than a loss of shelter; they symbolize shattered security, disrupted education, and long-lasting emotional trauma.
Israeli forces detain record numbers of Palestinian children without charge or trial amid humiliating prison conditions
Israeli forces seriously escalated efforts to arbitrarily detain, torture, and prosecute Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank following October 7, 2023, a strategy that continued into 2024.
The number of Palestinian child detainees in administrative detention soared to all-time highs in 2024, according to information provided by the Israel Prison Service. Israeli forces were detaining 85 Palestinian children in administrative detention as of September 30, a record number since DCIP began monitoring child administrative detainees in 2008.
Children in administrative detention represent 35 percent of all child detainees as of September 2024, compared to 15 percent of the total the year prior, according to documentation collected by DCIP.
Administrative detention is a form of imprisonment without charge or trial regularly used by Israeli authorities to arbitrarily detain Palestinians, including children. Palestinian children held under administrative detention orders are not presented with charges, and their detention is based on secret evidence that is neither disclosed to the child nor their attorney, preventing them from preparing a legal challenge to the detention and its alleged basis.
DCIP estimates an average of more than 200 Palestinian children were held in Israeli military detention each month in 2024. Each year, Israeli forces detain between 500 and 700 Palestinian children and prosecute them in military courts.
Before October 7, 2023, DCIP lawyers had regular access to Israeli prisons to support Palestinian child detainees and each year, collected dozens of testimonies from detained children to document the ill-treatment and torture they experienced at the hands of Israeli forces. After October 7, Israeli authorities implemented a series of restrictions that prevent Palestinian lawyers and families from visiting prisoners, isolating them from the outside world.
DCIP interviewed Palestinian children who were detained by Israeli forces for short periods of time then released. All Palestinian child detainees interviewed by DCIP reported that conditions inside Israeli prisons are worsening day by day. Israeli forces routinely carry out beatings, prevent child detainees from using the shower or toilet, serve rotten food, and pack children’s cells over capacity with more children than they are designed to hold.
Children typically arrive at interrogation bound, blindfolded, frightened, and sleep-deprived. Children often give confessions after verbal abuse, threats, physical and psychological violence that in some cases amounts to torture.
Israeli military law provides no right to legal counsel during interrogation, and Israeli military court judges seldom exclude confessions obtained by coercion or torture.
Israeli military forces have detained an unknown number of Palestinian children from Gaza who are being held in Israeli military camps in southern Israel. The children’s names, whereabouts, charges, and conditions are unknown, indicating these are enforced disappearances, which are outlawed under international law.
