UNICEF denounces 70 Palestinian children dead and 850 injured in the West Bank since January 2025

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported this Tuesday that at least 70 Palestinian children have died and another 850 have been injured in the West Bank since January 2025 due to the increase in Israeli military operations and attacks by Israeli settlers, before highlighting that the majority of the victims were hit by ammunition.

“Children are paying an intolerable price for the escalation of militarized operations and settler attacks throughout the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem,” said UNICEF spokesperson James Elder from the Swiss city of Geneva, while highlighting that this means that, on average, at least one Palestinian child has died every week since January 2025.

UNICEF has highlighted that 93% of the children who died in this period died at the hands of Israeli forces and has stressed that attacks by settlers, for their part, have reached “historic levels”, with the highest number of Palestinians injured in these incidents in the last 20 years during the month of March, according to data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Added to this is a “sharp increase” in the arrests of children by Israeli forces. “The most recent data indicates that 347 Palestinian children from the West Bank remain detained by Israeli military authorities for alleged security-related crimes, the highest number in eight years,” he specified.

“Alarmingly, more than half of these boys and girls, 180, are under administrative detention and without the necessary procedural guarantees, including detention without regular access to legal advice and without the right to challenge it,” he pointed out.

Thus, Elder has stressed that “these are not isolated incidents”, but rather “they point to a sustained pattern of the most serious forms of violations of children’s rights, as well as attacks against children’s homes, against their schools and against the water on which they depend.”

“What is happening is not only an escalation of violence against Palestinian children; it is the progressive dismantling of the conditions that boys and girls need to survive and grow,” he noted. “Homes are demolished. Education is attacked. Water systems are destroyed. Access to healthcare is hindered. Freedom of movement is restricted. In the last 30 months, more than 900 additional barriers and restrictions have been imposed throughout the West Bank,” he listed.

RECORD NUMBER OF DISPLACED PALESTINIANS

In this sense, he explained that “as a result, children in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are routinely isolated from schools, hospitals and other essential services, as movement is increasingly restricted or prevented entirely.”

“Homes have become the front line of attacks against children,” he lamented, while highlighting that in the first four months of the year, more than 2,500 Palestinians have been displaced from their homes, including 1,100 minors, a figure that represents the total number in 2025.

On the other hand, he noted that “education is also under sustained attack”, with thousands of children going to school with “fear”, including 99 incidents related to education so far in 2026, including “murders, injuries and arrests of students, demolition of schools, military use of school buildings and denial of access.”

“In just over two years, until the end of 2025, more than 550 incidents of this type were documented. Schools, which should be places of security and stability, are increasingly becoming spaces of fear,” said Elder, who said that these incidents represent “serious violations against boys and girls, with long-term consequences for their safety, well-being and future.”

The UNICEF spokesperson has also cited OCHA data revealing that “more than 60 water and sanitation infrastructures were vandalized” in 2026, which “has further limited already fragile access to safe water.” This has serious consequences both for the Palestinian economy and for the health, hygiene and dignity of children. Livelihoods are also weakened by livestock theft,” he argued.

For all this, he emphasized that “these patterns reveal a general reality.” “Children are being attacked both through direct violence and through the dismantling of essential systems and services. Their suffering cannot be normalized,” Elder stressed.

“UNICEF calls on the Israeli authorities (…) to take immediate and decisive measures to prevent further deaths and serious injuries to Palestinian children, and to protect their homes, schools and access to water in accordance with international law,” it stated, before calling on States “with influence” to “use their pressure to ensure that International Law is respected.”