United Nations agencies warned on Tuesday that Israeli military operations and surging settler attacks in the occupied West Bank are killing and maiming Palestinian children. Meanwhile, in Gaza, tens of thousands of people with life-changing injuries lack access to prosthetics or rehabilitation care. Among them are around 10,000 children who remain unable to receive essential treatment as shortages of medical supplies and rehabilitation equipment continue to worsen across the enclave.
James Elder, a spokesperson for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), told reporters in Geneva that children in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are "paying an intolerable price" for the ongoing violence. Since January 2025, some 70 children have been killed — at least one on average every week — and a further 850 injured, mostly by live ammunition.
“All this comes amid historic levels of settler attacks,” he said, explaining that March 2026 saw the highest number of Palestinians injured by settler attacks in the last 20 years.
“We're seeing attacks become increasingly coordinated,” Elder added, citing data from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
“Documented incidents include children shot, stabbed, children beaten, and children pepper-sprayed.”
The UNICEF spokesperson emphasized that these are not “isolated incidents—they point to a sustained pattern of the worst kinds of violations of children’s rights, as well as attacks on children’s homes, on their schools, and on the water, they rely on.”
“What is unfolding is not only an escalation in violence against Palestinian children; it is the steady dismantling of the conditions children need to survive and grow,” he added.
Recalling his recent West Bank visit, Elder described meeting an eight-year-old who had been beaten with a piece of wood in a settler attack and hospitalized for head injuries.
The boy’s mother “had both her arms broken when she reached across to protect her four-month-old baby, putting therefore her arms between her baby and the attacker's club”.
Elder also highlighted the prevalence of education-related attacks, including the killing, injury and detention of students, as well as the demolition of schools.
“Schools, which should be places of safety and stability, are increasingly becoming places of panic,” he stressed.
“I walked with schoolchildren through the West Bank so as to try and help them avoid any attacks,” the UNICEF spokesperson recounted.
“It's interesting to watch them walk [...].They don't walk in a straight line because they're constantly looking over their shoulder.”
“This is a walk to school. It's become a walk through fear,” he added.
Elder also reported on a “sharp rise” in the arrest and the detention of Palestinian children from the occupied territory, saying that 347 of them are being held in Israeli military detention “for alleged security-related offenses” – the highest number in eight years.
“Alarmingly, more than half of these children, 180, are held under administrative detention and without the procedural safeguards, including detention without regular access to legal counsel and the right to challenge detention,” he said.
“Taken together, these patterns reveal an overarching reality: children are being targeted both through direct violence, and through the dismantling of essential systems and services. Their suffering cannot be normalized.”
UNICEF aims to help children and families in the West Bank access safe water, sanitation, and healthcare. The organization plans to provide cash assistance, learning materials, and psychosocial care.
The UN agency calls on Israeli authorities to take immediate and decisive action to prevent the further killing and maiming of Palestinian children, as well as to protect their homes, schools, and access to water, in accordance with international law.
Israeli authorities are legally obligated to uphold children's rights in all areas under their jurisdiction or control, including occupied territories.
UNICEF also calls on UN member states, especially those with influence, to leverage their power to ensure that international law is respected.
In Gaza, meanwhile, Elder said that since the October 2025 ceasefire, the UN has documented the deaths of at least 229 children and the injuries of at least 260 more.
WHO: Of the 172,000 people injured in Gaza, 43,000 have sustained life-changing injuries
Reinhilde Van de Weerdt, the WHO’s representative in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), told reporters that approximately 10,000 children in the Gaza Strip live with life-changing injuries.
Overall, an estimated 43,000 of the 172,000 people injured in Gaza since October 2023 have sustained such trauma, including spinal cord injuries, traumatic brain injuries, burns, and amputations. Since the October 2025 ceasefire, almost 2,500 people have been injured.
“Of the 2,277 people that have had a limb amputated, less than 25 percent have been fitted with permanent prosthetics,” Van de Weerdt said, due to a severe shortage of prosthetics in Gaza.
Speaking from Jerusalem, the WHO representative explained that at least 18 shipments of rehabilitation supplies, such as wheelchairs and prosthetic limbs, are pending clearance to enter Gaza. Waiting times range from 130 days to over a year.
In total, more than 50,000 conflict-related injuries require long-term rehabilitation, yet there are no functional rehabilitation facilities in the enclave.
“Every day that rehabilitation services in Gaza remain under-resourced is a day that preventable disability risks become permanent,” she added.
However, the health crisis extended beyond conflict injuries, affecting people with chronic conditions, disabilities, and age-related needs, all of whom faced the same overwhelmed health system, according to Van de Weerdt.
WHO is calling for urgent access to rehabilitation supplies, sustained investment in Gaza’s health system, and continued support to help people recover and rebuild their lives.