“Okay. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for
joining us here at this press conference
in Geneva with the Independent International
Commission of Inquiry on the occupied
Palestinian territory, including East
Jerusalem and Israel. As you may know, the Commission published its latest
mandate report on 9 June and presented
those findings to the Council during an
interactive dialogue last week. Today, the Commission published a new report detailing how
Israeli authorities and security forces
deliberately targeted Palestinian children
resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity,
and war crimes. We’ll start today with an opening statement by the chair of the
Commission, Mr. Muralidhar, followed by remarks from fellow Commissioners Chris
Sidoti and Florence Mumba. Then we’ll open the
floor to your questions. Now we can begin with the
chair. Please go ahead. Thank you, Todd. Good
afternoon, everyone. I would like to start
the press conference by announcing that today
the commission has released 100 page report
documenting violations and crimes committed
by Israel against Palestinian children in the occupied Palestinian
territory since 7th October 2023
until 31 March 2026. We just briefed Member States this morning on the
report’s findings. The Commission’s comprehensive
report is unique, being the first
specialized report on crimes and violations against Palestinian children
in Palestine by a UN investigative body. The report draws partially on earlier findings of the
Commission as published in previous reports
while incorporating newly collected evidence
and investigated cases. The Commission found indisputable evidence
with regards to the deliberate targeted killing
of Palestinian children, including since the
October 2025 cease fire, the use of torture, inhumane and
degrading treatment, including use of sexual and genderized violence against Palestinian children, as well as targeting of critical infrastructure
essential to children such as orphanages, healthcare, and
educational facilities. There has been a widespread and systematic killing
and harming of children. Between 7th October 2023
and 7th October 2025, we have witnessed more than
20,000 children who’ve been killed and more than 44,000
children who’ve been injured. Children constitute 30% of
all those killed in oPt and the killing and injuring of children has been a
continuing activity. Children are being killed
mainly in two ways. One, through airstrikes using high yield explosives
with wide area effects, and second, using
quacopters, drones, and sniper rifles
that specifically target and kill children to
their head and upper body. There is also a severe
orphan crisis with an estimated 58,554
children who lost one or both parents between
7th October 2023 and 7th October 2025. There has been a
systematic disruption by Israel of the children’s
ability to learn, thereby sabotaging the intellectual and
social foundations of the Palestinian society. The Commission’s
findings are that Israel targets children to weaken demographic vitality and deny the Palestinian
people’s right to self determination. 97% of all schools
have been destroyed, 95% of the universities
have been affected in Gaza, 22 out of the 38 universities have been completely destroyed. We have found the use of
starvation and imposition of conditions of life
obstructing children’s survival. As of first October 2025, there have been 151
children’s deaths on account of malnutrition. We’ve also found that between
October and December 2023, there have been at least
more than 1,000 instances of children undergoing
amputation of one or more limbs. Based on all the
evidence gathered, the report makes
legal findings and concludes that the
Israeli authorities and the Israeli security
forces have deliberately targeted and killed
Palestinian children and destroyed their childhood. Israeli authorities and the
Israeli security forces are responsible for
crimes against humanity, including persecution
and war crimes in the Gaza strip and war crimes in the West Bank,
including East Jerusalem. The report released
today further substantiates a
finding on genocide. The protection, care,
and survival of Palestinian children
and pregnant women are inextricably linked to the Palestinian people’s
fundamental right to self determination as children represent
the future bearers of their collective
identity and resilience. By targeting children, Israel is eroding the
foundational structure of Palestinian society, weakening the
demographic vitality and overall capacity of the Palestinian
people to sustain and exercise its right to determine
its future as a people. Our report concludes that the settler violence in the West
Bank functions as a means of implementing Israeli
state policies with both the state and violent
settler groups working in collaboration towards the
same strategic objective, unlawful territorial expansion. It also concludes that Hamas has repeatedly committed
grave abuses against Palestinians in Gaza using the cover of Israeli
military offensives and the broader
collapse of law and order to carry out
campaigns of repression, torture, and unlawful
killings of Palestinians. This was stated by
us in our report, which we presented to the Human Rights Council
on 15 June 2026. The report by the Board of Peace to the Security Council
in May this year, pursuant to the Security
Council Resolution 2803, claims that the conditions for Palestinians in
Gaza have improved. This contradicts the
findings of this commission. The Israeli Prime
Minister has been clear. Israel aims to seize
at least 70% of the Gaza strip in
clear violation of the ceasefire agreement
and international law. The reality is that Palestinians continue to
be killed and harmed in Gaza even after
the ceasefire was announced in October last
year and the amount of humanitarian aid
allowed into Gaza remains very much below the
necessary levels needed. Lastly, the Commission condemns the severe mistreatment of the flotilla activists detained
by the Israeli forces. Such public disregard of international law would
support the findings of the Commission in
previous reports that Palestinian detainees
were severely mistreated, including tortured, raped, and sexually abused
by Israeli forces. The Commission welcomes
the opening of the judicial investigations
in a number of countries about these events. We are grateful for the
support expressed by many member states to the
commission’s mandate and work, including during last week’s Human Rights
Council interactive Dialogue. In this report, we made a
series of recommendations to the State of Israel and to the Member States as well
as the Security Council, which we hope that the Member
States will act upon and the other bodies to whom we have addressed them will act upon. We intend to continue pursuing the fulfillment
of a mandate, including in relation to
making recommendations in particular on accountability
measures with a view to preventing and ending impunity and
ensuring accountability, including state
responsibility and individual criminal and
command responsibility. I now invite my co commissioners
to make their comments. Thank you, Chair. I would also like to underscore the
importance of the report on violations against
and affecting Palestinian children that
we have issued today, which warrants close attention. This report, which
the Commission worked on for almost two
years is based on multiple interviews and
group discussions with victims and witnesses,
including children themselves. Are conduct, we have conducted
medical tests, military, and digital forensic analysis, and consulted independent
forensic pathologists, among other sources. The Commission found that
the continued pattern of conduct by the Israeli security
forces over two years in Gaza is intended to destroy the biological continuity and future existence of
the Palestinian group, of which Palestinian
children are a part of. The Commission has found that the deliberate targeting of children is one of
the key elements, establishing specific intent of the Israeli authorities and security forces to destroy the
Palestinian group as such, in whole or in part in Gaza. Israel’s use of
reproductive violence in Gaza has directly and disproportionately
harmed newborn survival as well as Palestinians
reproductive future. The conditions of life imposed
by Israel have resulted in preventable mortality
of children and serious mental
trauma in Gaza. In the report, the Commission has concluded recommendations, has included recommendations to Israel and to all member states, as well as to the International
Criminal Court and other judicial institutions to ensure accountability
for such crimes. I now pass on to Commissioner Sidoti for
his remarks. Thank you. Thank you, Chair and
Commissioner Mumba. This is the Commission’s
17th report. Some of our reports deal
with time specific events, so the events on 7-8 October
2023 in Southern Israel, the events in Gaza from
then until the end of 2023. Others are thematic reports, such as the one dealing with sex and gender based violence. This report is a thematic report dealing with the
situation of children. The Chair and Commissioner
Muma have described very well the contents of the report and its
principal findings. When presenting
reports, I try to be legal, technical,
and dispassionate. But today, I want to
speak very personally. For me, this report
has been the most difficult of the 17 reports that the Commission
has produced. Some events stay
with me long after a report is investigated,
written, and released. The events that stay with me are the events
concerning children. The report we released
in June 2024, dealing with the events
in Southern Israel on 78 October 2023 contained accounts of very
grave atrocities. But there is one that remains
with me still years later. Five teenagers, a
girl and four boys, all age 16 or 17, went early that Saturday
morning to Zikim Beach. Presumably, they were having an early morning at the beach, going there maybe to swim, at least enjoy themselves. When a Hamas boat arrived at the beach and gunfire commenced, the five teenagers fled to a toilet block
seeking safety there. They were joined by an
adult fisherman and also by an Israeli soldier who sought to defend them unsuccessfully. The soldier was killed, the fisherman was killed, and all five children, a girl, four boys were killed. They were five of the almost 40 Israeli
children killed that day. The report we released
today is looking at the Israeli military’s
killings and injuring and damaging the
lives of Palestinian children. The chair has referred
to the fact that there were over
20,000 Palestinian children in Gaza killed between October 2023
and October 2025. 20,000 or more, maybe 22,000 directly killed
by the violence. The child whose
death struck me most personally was not killed
directly by the violence, was not included amongst those 20 to 22,000 accredited deaths. Those deaths were all of
children whose bodies were identified and who
were injured by bullets or shrapnel or bombings. The girl I’m talking about, age 12, had celiac disease. Celiac disease is a
manageable disease. Children do not die
with celiac disease. When her, her situation
came to public attention, it was dismissed by the Israeli authorities on the basis that this girl had
a pre existing condition. The evidence was there. We saw the photos and the
videos of this child. She suffered seriously from
malnutrition, diarrhea. She lost a third of her body weight over
a six month period. From March to May 2025, the Israeli authorities
imposed a total siege on Gaza. No food was getting in
during that period, and certainly, not the food required by a child
with celiac disease. That’s when her
weight loss began. In October 2025, suffering from severe
acute malnutrition, she was admitted to the
NASA Medical Center. The doctors applied for her to be medically evacuated from Gaza so that she could receive the level of treatment
needed to save her life. The Israeli authorities
did not reply. In October 2025, the child died. She didn’t die of
cyliac disease. Children don’t die
of celiac disease. She died of starvation, the direct result of the
policies implemented by the Israeli government
and the Israeli military. Oh, and I should add two
weeks after she died, the Israeli authorities approved
her medical evacuation. The child whose death struck me most on the West Bank was
in a different situation. He was directly killed. He was in the refugee
camp of Al Farah, in the town of Tubas
a 14-year-old boy. He was shot by an Israeli military patrol
as he was leaving his house. The patrol had been in the area, but at the time, there had
been no fighting taking place. He was shot, badly injured, and was lying on the ground. He was surrounded
by a company of Israeli soldiers who were
chatting and probably some of them smoking
over a period of 45 minutes while this
14-year-old boy bled to death. Early in the period, he was able to move a little. He pushed his cap out to indicate that he was still
alive and needed attention. A soldier kicked the
cap back at him. On another occasion,
he was crying out, and again, the response
was kicking towards him. Later in the period, a soldier came up and dropped
a stone next to him, trying to frame
this innocent child as a stone thrower when there is no evidence
whatsoever that the child was doing anything
more than going out to play. His mother was watching from the house that
he’d just left. And as the child sought
to leave the house, as the mother sought
to leave the house, to go to the child to rescue
him or attend to him, she was shot at by the
Israeli military patrol. There was a Palestinian Red
Cross ambulance nearby. And whenever the
ambulance tried to approach the scene of
the child lying there, a laser targeted weapon
was aimed at the driver of the ambulance so that the laser was hitting the driver in the
middle of the head, and the driver, of course, withdrew in fear of being shot. For 45 minutes, this child
bled to death while surrounded by Israeli soldiers who not only showed no concern
for him whatsoever, not only did nothing themselves
to assist the child, but actively prevented
the child’s mother from reaching him and the
ambulance from assisting him. After the child died, the soldiers took his body away, and the body has still not been returned to the
family for burial. An Israeli military force holding a child’s
body as hostage. I have three questions
today for Israeli people. Through this press conference, I want to speak
to them directly. What kind of people are your
soldiers who would allow a 14-year-old child to bleed to death over a
45 minute period? What kind of people are
your military leaders that would inculcate a culture that soldiers feel
free to do this, acting with total impunity? What kind of people are your leaders when
they give orders? They make statements that
encourage this kind of conduct, not merely permit it,
but encourage it. I saw a couple of weeks ago that Israeli President
Herzog made a statement about some extremist
Israeli settlers. He described, and I quote the report of
what he said directly, a wave of terrible
violence that is being carried out by an anarchist mob, acts that defile and
violate every basic moral, legal, and Jewish norm. Herzog was speaking about a handful of extremist settlers, and he was right in the way
in which he described them. But he should have gone on to describe the key institutions
of Israeli society, the government, the Knesset, the political parties, and the military in exactly
the same terms. A anarchist mob committing acts that defile and
violate every basic moral, legal, and Jewish norm. I’m a lawyer, so I can
only speak legally. There is no doubt whatsoever. There can be no
doubt in anyone who reads today’s report that every international
legal norm has been violated by the actions of the Israeli authorities
towards Palestinian children, and they need to be
held accountable. Thank you, everyone, for those
important opening remarks. Now we will open the
floor to questions. First, we’ll check in the room. Do we have any questions from
those media in the room? If you could please
identify yourself in the media outlet you work
for. Please go ahead. Yeah, good morning. Thank
you for the briefing. You find that the acts committed in Gaza
amount to genocide, but the acts committed in the West Bank amount
only to war crimes. I’m wondering why the
distinction. Thank you. Perhaps I should answer
that question, Nick, since I was on the commission at the time of the
genocide report, and others, of course, newer commissioners
may wish to add. The genocide report looks
specifically at Gaza. We did not examine at that time the question of genocide
in the West Bank, and we have still not been
in a position to do so. So our findings relate very much to the
investigations that we have carried out and the conclusions that we have drawn from
our legal analysis. At this stage, we have found war crimes
and crimes against humanity committed by
Israeli authorities in Gaza and the West Bank. But we have only
examined and made findings concerning genocide
in relation to Gaza. Thank you. We will
take one question online from E. Please go ahead. António, are you there? We’ll come back to
FA in a second. Let’s go next to Jeremy from Radio France Radio France
International. Please go ahead. We may have some
audio difficulty. I will read a question that we received in the chat from
Neer Hasan from Haretz. The question is as follows. The Israeli Ministry
of Foreign Affairs published a response
to the report, which includes,
among other things, claims of distinct bias of the committee members
against Israel, a lack of medical, military, and ballistic experience to
conduct an investigation, and reliance on unidentified
and unverified testimonies and reliance on data from Hamas. What is the committees or commission rathers
response to this? I think we make our methodology very clear in the report itself. In paragraph ten of this report, everyone reading would
realize the rigor which we bring to analysis of the evidence that
has been gathered. The commission received evidence such as medical reports,
including X radiation, X rays, photographs, video
and audio statements of patients who had given their consent to share this information with the commission. The Commission consulted two independent
forensic pathologists who provided forensic
analysis of the evidence, including CT scans,
medical reports, photographs and videos
of the children. Who were shot and either
killed or maimed. Open source material
was forensically collected in accordance with
the international standards on the preservation of web
based content and rules of admissibility of digital
evidence where needed. Open source material
was verified through comprehensive cross
referencing with a broad, varied collection of
reputable sources and complemented by advanced
forensic examination, including visual
media authentication, geolocation and
chronolocation analysis, metadata extraction,
and face recognition. A full list of sources used for the report is on file
with the commission. I would assert that this commission adopts
the highest standards, aligns its evidence gathering
and analysis protocols with that required by international
adjudicatory mechanisms. Therefore, I would refute
this charge spelled out by Herodz quoting
the Israeli sources. Okay. Let’s try and see if
the audio is working again. We’ll go again to FA António. Could you please try to pose your question. Okay. Okay. For now, I’ll read. This question is from
FA from António Broto. His question is, what are your expectations that this second report
accusing Israel of genocide will serve for
the accountability of the Israeli forces in
international courts? And how do you think
the proceedings to achieve this are progressing? Second question. When
you say that you identified Israeli forces that have carried out attacks
against children, are you referring to any
specific units or divisions? And can you give
us any examples? Let me take a second
question first, if you mind. Let me address the
second question first. In paragraph 356 of our report, we have listed out the
divisions, brigades, or units of the Israeli
security forces that have been responsible for the
killing and injuring of Palestinian children
in Gaza and West Bank. We’ve listed out all
the incidents as well. There are as many as
13 a 11 13 incidents, and we’ve referred to each of the divisions responsible
for each of those incidents. So that evidence is very
much with the Commission. And as far as the first question is
concerned, what is that about? Excuse me. The first question. What are your expectations
of this second report? Yes, in Israel. We’ve made recommendations to member
states because they can exercise in their
domestic courts universal jurisdiction if they are parties to
these conventions, which many of the countries are. We have asked that they should arrest any Israeli
official against whom an arrest warrant
has been issued by the ICC and extdite them
into the custody of the ICC. We’ve requested
them to employ all means reasonably available to prevent the commission
of genocide, war crimes, and crimes
against humanity and ensure full compliance with the Geneva Conventions
in the OPT. We’ve requested member
states to cease the transfer of arms and
other equipment or items to the state of Israel
or third states where they could or would be used
to violate international law, and we’ve asked them to
conduct investigations under domestic or
universal jurisdiction of Israeli individuals or
organizations suspected of having participated in
the unlawful acts of violence against
Palestinian children. There are also dual citizens. Many of the citizens
of these countries are serving on the
Israeli defense forces, and when they return
home, of course, action can be taken against them if the investigations
into their actions show their involvement in any
of the incidents that this commission has talked
about in its report. There is a variety of options available with
the member states. I think this report
will help them exercise those options and carry the mandate of this commission forward for ensuring
justice to all victims, victims who could be
Israeli nationals, victims who could be
Palestinians and others. Could I just make one
specific addition? In relation to the
14-year-old boy who bled to death over
the period of 45 minutes, the soldiers were members of
the paratrooper Battalion, operating under the command
of the Monash Brigade, also known as the 431st
Territorial Brigade. We know who they are. I must also add
that we have quoted specific instances
of Israeli soldiers filming their own acts, including degrading
toys of children or making statements about how they enjoy
blowing up schools. These are Israeli soldiers recording their own statements and putting up on social media, and this is available
in the public domain. So it is actually astonishing that no action is being
taken against any of these soldiers for going to this lengths in brazenly taking pride in destroying
children’s future and children’s livelihoods
and children’s aspirations. Thank you. We’ll take
a question online from Jeremy Launch from
Radio France International. I will read it for the moment. Can you elaborate
on the targeting of children directly at
the head or upper body? The report talks about some of game used by soldiers targeting a different
body part each day. I’m going to share
with all of you that apart from the sources that we’ve quoted in the report, they also conducted
oral hearings after we arrived here
in Geneva this time, and three of the doctors
who were involved in treatment of children
in Gaza spoke to us, and they confirmed what the report has found on the
basis of available material, that the gunshot wounds were
specifically directed at the head and the neck to
cause maximum damage. In one instance, a
breastfeeding baby was shot by a quadcopter
through the head and the baby now suffers a
permanent paralysis. There have been all these
instances quoted in the report of specific
targeting of children. Quadcopters, all of you are
aware, has thermal imagery. It has infrared heat cameras which can tell you the
shape of the body. And so the soldiers are able to immediately detect sitting
wherever they are, that this is a child who
appears on the screen, and indeed it is like
a game for them. And they have quoted that in the report
where the soldiers say that they can I’ll
let me quote this. In the IT VX documentary Breaking Ranks
inside Israel’s War, one Israeli soldier
described the drones, in my opinion, are what most
dehumanizes the other side. You see everything on a screen, you drop the bomb. It feels like a game. You can sit in some
basement of a house safe with your helmet off
scratching your balls, half dressed and
kill Palestinians. This is a quotation.
This is why I say Israeli soldiers
have themselves put on the public domain so much incriminating evidence about what they’ve been doing. Thank you…”
cheers