UN commission of inquiry says Israel committing genocide in Gaza by deliberately targeting children

Image source, EPA Image caption, About 30% of those killed in the Gaza war have been children, according to the UN commission of inquiry By David Gritten  and  Stephanie Hegarty Published 55 minutes ago A UN commission of inquiry says Israel has deliberately targeted Palestinian children, resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Gaza Strip, as well as war crimes in the occupied West Bank. A new report alleges that Israeli authorities and security forces have "deliberately carried out acts inflicting death and severe bodily and mental harm on hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children", and that the killings continued even after last October's ceasefire in Gaza. The commission says it has reasonable grounds to conclude that those acts "form part of a deliberate strategy to destroy the future of the Palestinians in Gaza by targeting their children". Israel's foreign ministry said it "utterly rejects" the commission's report, calling it a "libellous sham" and "a propaganda piece as outrageous as its previous ones". The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the unprecedented Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage. At least 73,035 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, including more than 21,280 children, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures are seen as reliable by the UN. The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel was established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2021 to investigate alleged violations of international humanitarian and human rights law. Its three-member expert panel does not officially speak for the UN. Last September, the commission accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza . A report said there were reasonable grounds to conclude that four of the five acts of genocide defined under the 1948 Genocide Convention had been carried out by Israeli authorities and security forces. Israel strongly rejected that report, calling it distorted and false. The commission has previously concluded that Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes and other grave violations of international law on 7 October 2023, and that Israeli security forces have committed crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza. Last October, Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire as part of US President Donald Trump's plan to end the war. Since then, both sides have accused each other of violating the truce repeatedly. Gaza's health ministry says more than 1,020 Palestinians have been killed, among them 265 children. The Israeli military says four soldiers have also been killed. On Tuesday, the commission of inquiry said in a statement released together with the report that "the intense scale and systematic nature" of Israeli military operations in Gaza had continued, resulting in