The international NGO Human Rights Watch said on Monday that the Israeli army and border police have killed a record number of Palestinian children in 2022 and 2023 without being held accountable. 

According to the group, last year was the deadliest year for Palestinian children since 2008, and this year is on course to overtake this peak. 

As of August 22nd, Israeli forces had killed at least 34 Palestinian children in the West Bank this year.

“Israeli forces are gunning down Palestinian children living under occupation with increasing frequency,” said Bill Van Esveld, associate children’s rights director at Human Rights Watch. “Unless Israel’s allies, particularly the United States, pressure Israel to change course, more Palestinian children will be killed.”

The rights group investigated the killing of four Palestinian minors.

One example was the case of Mahmoud al-Sadi, 17, who was killed by Israeli forces as he walked to school near the Jenin refugee camp on November 21, 2022. The IDF did not address his killing – but said its forces had been conducting arrest raids in the camp, during which they exchanged fire with Palestinian fighters, even though the nearest exchange of fighters was over 300 meters away from where he was shot. 

According to Human Rights Watch, "Mahmoud stood by the side of a road, waiting for the sounds of shooting in the distance to stop, and was not holding any weapon or projectile, a witness said and a security-camera video that Human Rights Watch reviewed showed. After the distant shooting had stopped and the Israeli forces were withdrawing, a single shot fired from an Israeli military vehicle roughly 100 meters away struck Mahmoud, the witness said."