As Israel Extends Its Genocide Into the West Bank, It Targets and Kills Children

Marjorie Cohn

October 8, 2024

The Israeli occupation forces have extended their genocidal campaign in Gaza to the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Using drone strikes, troops in armored vehicles and bulldozers, their regular raids since October 7, 2023, have escalated into extensive and deadly attacks. Between August 28 and September 6, Israel launched “Operation Summer Camps,” a major military invasion, in the northern West Bank. “We watched their bulldozers tear up streets, demolish businesses, pharmacies, schools. They even bulldozed the town soccer field, and a tree in the middle of a road,” Kamal Abu al-Rub, the governor of Jenin, told The New York Times.

A Palestinian child pushes his bike next to a street and past shops damaged by bulldozers during an Israeli raid in the center of Jenin in the occupied West Bank on September 2, 2024.

Since October 7, 2023, Israeli forces have killed at least 722 Palestinians, including at least 164 children, in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

In Jenin city, within the governorate, approximately 70 percent of the roads have been damaged or destroyed in the attacks, according to the city’s mayor, Nidal Obeidi. Electricity, internet and telephone lines were shut down. Water and sewage lines were cut, leaving about 80 percent of Jenin with no running water, including the main hospital.

“They are imposing conditions, materially and psychologically, that make people feel: Gaza is coming to you,” Shawan Jabarin, director of Al Haq, a human rights group based in the West Bank, reported to the Times. “There is a feeling among Palestinians across the West Bank that what is coming is very bad — that it will be a plan to kill and expel us.”

UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territory Francesca Albanese warns that “Apartheid Israel is targeting Gaza and the West Bank simultaneously, as part of an overall process of elimination, replacement and territorial expansion.” Likewise, European Union Foreign Affairs Chief Josep Borrell said, “Without action, the West Bank will become a new Gaza. And Gaza will become a new West Bank, as settlers’ movements are preparing new settlements.”

In this exclusive interview for Truthout, Miranda Cleland, advocacy officer for Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCIP), explains how Israel’s vicious assault in the West Bank is increasingly targeting children. A Palestinian human rights organization based in Ramallah, DCIP is a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit against U.S. President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for complicity in genocide and failure to prevent genocide in Gaza.

Marjorie Cohn: Defense for Children International-Palestine is the only Palestinian human rights organization specifically focused on children’s rights. What is their primary work?

Miranda Cleland: DCIP was founded in the early ‘90s to provide legal aid to Palestinian children arrested and prosecuted by the Israeli military in the occupied West Bank. Since then, we’ve grown to include human rights education for Palestinian children, documentation of child rights violations with a focus on fatalities and detention, and international advocacy to push for accountability and greater protections for Palestinian children across the occupied Palestinian territory — the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.

On September 9, DCIP issued a report that examined the cases of 141 children killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, between October 7, 2023, and July 31, 2024. How did that number compare with the killing of children there before October 7?

I’m one of the authors of our new report, “Targeting Childhood.” We found that 20 percent of all Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since the year 2000 were killed after October 7. Israeli forces have seriously escalated their efforts to kill Palestinian children, from Gaza to the West Bank, and the data backs this up.

Were these children killed by accident, or were they specifically targeted? Were some of them killed while protesting Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza?

Ninety percent of Palestinian children killed with live ammunition fired by Israeli forces or settlers were shot in the head, torso, or in multiple areas, according to the data in our report. Shooting a child in the head or torso demonstrates a clear intent to kill. Many of these children were shot by Israeli snipers from great distances — in some cases 1,000 feet away — which also indicates they were targeted.

We documented 10 cases where Palestinian children were shot and killed by Israeli forces in October 2023, during demonstrations in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. Four of these children were shot with expanding bullets, which expand inside the body upon impact and cause massive internal bleeding. The use of expanding bullets is a war crime.

What happened to their bodies after they died? Did the Israeli forces allow medical aid to reach the injured children?

In 43 percent of cases documented in the report, Israeli forces deliberately prevented injured Palestinian children from receiving medical care by detaining and firing live ammunition toward ambulances, paramedics and civilians attempting to provide aid. In many cases, these were children who sustained gunshot wounds from Israeli soldiers to the head or chest, or sometimes multiple locations on their bodies. In some cases, Israeli drone-fired missiles struck a child, leaving them with burns and shrapnel wounds all over their body. Israeli forces fired at ambulances and paramedics, and even civilian bystanders who tried to run and offer help to the child. Israeli soldiers surrounded a wounded child just long enough to confirm they were dead. This is an act of incredible cruelty, to ensure that a child dies alone and in immense pain, bleeding out on the ground.

Israeli forces enter refugee camps and kill Palestinians, including children. They have targeted refugee camps in the past. How does the current campaign differ from prior incursions? Why do you think they target refugee camps?

Israeli forces carry out incursions into Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank, including refugee camps, on a daily basis. In recent incursions, Israeli forces have seriously escalated their efforts to not only kill and arrest Palestinians, including children, but also to damage and destroy civilian infrastructure like roads and power lines. They also besiege hospitals, like we witnessed in Jenin. And it’s not just Israeli ground forces carrying out these incursions; they are accompanied by military bulldozers, tanks and heavily armored military vehicles, in addition to drones and Apache attack helicopters.

Do Israeli forces use U.S.-provided weapons in the killing of Palestinians and destruction of infrastructure in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem?

The United States provides $3.8 billion in military assistance to Israel every year, and since October 7, it has provided tens of millions more in funding as well as weapons. The U.S. places virtually no restrictions on how this funding and these weapons are used, so they are certainly used in the Israeli military’s campaign to target and kill Palestinian children.

What role do Israeli settlers play in the violence against children? Do Israeli forces restrain or enable settler violence?

Israeli settlers have been emboldened by the current right-wing Israeli government, and there have been more and more cases of Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank since October 7. In two cases of Palestinian child fatalities cited in our report, we could not determine who shot the bullet that killed the child, since Israeli soldiers and settlers were firing toward the child simultaneously. Of course, this is a difference without a distinction. In some cases, Israeli soldiers stand by and watch as Israeli settlers attack Palestinians; in other cases, they attack alongside one another.

Does Israel’s escalation of violence in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, correspond to the increased construction of illegal Jewish settlements there?

Absolutely — in many parts of the occupied West Bank, illegal Israeli settlements surround Palestinian villages and communities and encroach on Palestinian land, leading to Israeli settler attacks in these Palestinian communities.

How does targeting children violate international law?

Targeting children with live ammunition is first and foremost a violation of their basic right to life as outlined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Israel has ratified along with nearly every other country in the world. It is also a violation of international humanitarian law as well as international criminal law.

Israel has an obligation as the “Occupying Power” under international humanitarian law to protect the Palestinian population living under Israeli military occupation. Yet Israeli forces overwhelmingly fail to intervene to stop or prevent settler attacks and instead protect the settlers, empowering them to perpetuate violent attacks against the Palestinian civilian population in the occupied West Bank.

Has there been legal accountability for those responsible for the deaths of these children?

No. Israeli authorities, which are able to hold Israeli military officials and soldiers responsible, are clearly unwilling to hold perpetrators accountable, which is why we believe the international community must intervene and enact an arms embargo as well as sanctions to force accountability.

What evidence would you cite that Israel maintains an apartheid system in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem?

The Israeli military legal system is applied only to Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank. This means that Palestinians, including children, who are arrested by the Israeli military are prosecuted in the Israeli military court system, where the judge and prosecutor are soldiers and the conviction rate is upwards of 95 percent. Israeli settlers living in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank never come into contact with the military legal system and instead are subject to the Israeli civil legal system. That’s what apartheid is: Different legal systems and statuses applied to different populations based on ethnicity in the same territory.

Do you think Israel is extending its nearly yearlong genocidal campaign in Gaza into the West Bank, including East Jerusalem?

Absolutely. As with Gaza, the Israeli government and military has made very clear its intentions to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their land until there is no Palestinian life to speak of.

What actions does DCIP demand that the international community take to prevent additional violence against children and to hold those responsible accountable?

In our report, we list three demands for the international community, which includes many countries and actors that have either watched, or turned away entirely, as Israeli forces have slaughtered Palestinian children at an unprecedented rate from Gaza to the occupied West Bank:

1. Enact an immediate and comprehensive arms embargo alongside diplomatic and financial pressure to pressure Israeli authorities and forces to end the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, the Israeli apartheid regime and the Israeli military occupation of the occupied Palestinian territory.
2. Investigate allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity and support investigations by the International Criminal Court, in order to hold perpetrators accountable.
3. Use all available means, including those listed above, to demand that Israeli authorities uphold Palestinian children’s rights as outlined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Israel has ratified.

On September 18, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted a resolution intiated by the State of Palestine, demanding an end to the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory in accordance with international law, as recently established by the International Court of Justice. The resolution calls for sanctioning Israel and forbidding member states from conducting business with Israel or promoting the legitimacy of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory.

 

The Gaza Crisis and the End of Human Rights: The Failure of International Law

Hilal Cibik

Exeter (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – As the Israeli attacks against Gaza have continued to rage, now spilling into Lebanon, a year of unspeakable violence has raised persistent questions about the efficacy of international law and global governance. Israel’s ongoing military actions in Palestine and the devastating toll on civilian lives. In the face of these flagrant violations of international law, from the Geneva Conventions to humanitarian rules meant to safeguard civilians, the world watches in a state of paralysis. The impotence of the United Nations (UN) and other international bodies calls into question whether global institutions are equipped to prevent such tragedies or hold aggressors accountable. The answer is clear: international law and organizations have failed.

A Year of Violence: A Tragedy for Palestine

For over a year, the Israeli occupation authorities have pursued increasingly aggressive military operations in Gaza and the West Bank. Thousands of Palestinian civilians have been killed, with entire neighborhoods razed, hospitals bombed, and essential infrastructure destroyed. The blockade of Gaza has deepened, leaving millions without access to necessities such as adequate water, food, and medical care. This is not just warfare; it is the systematic destruction of a people -— genocide, according to many scholars and human rights organizations.

What is perhaps most disheartening is the international community’s response — or lack thereof. Despite widespread documentation of war crimes, including targeting civilians, collective punishment, and disproportionate use of force, there has been no meaningful intervention. Israel’s actions flagrantly violate international law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the deliberate targeting of civilians and calls for the protection of those in occupied territories. Yet, condemnation from global institutions has been largely symbolic, devoid of enforcement or consequences.

Lebanon: The Conflict Expands

Now, as Israel extends its military campaign into Lebanon, targeting Hezbollah, the crisis has escalated into a regional conflict. The Lebanese civilian population, already struggling under economic collapse and political instability, now faces the terrifying prospect of attacks. As with Gaza and the West Bank, civilians are caught in the crossfire, and international law once again appears impotent in the face of aggression.

The expansion of conflict raises broader geopolitical concerns. The Middle East has long been a powder keg, and Israel’s unchecked military actions risk pulling the region into greater chaos. Yet, despite these dire consequences, the international community remains largely passive, offering only calls for restraint and diplomacy, which ring hollow in the absence of real accountability.

The Collapse of International Law

This ongoing crisis exposes the deep flaws within the international legal system. Israel’s continued breaches of international humanitarian law, from illegal settlements to disproportionate military force, challenge the very foundation of the post-World War II order. International law is designed to prevent such atrocities, yet when its mechanisms fail to hold powerful actors accountable, it becomes a dead letter.

The role of international organizations, particularly the United Nations, is central to this failure. The UN, founded to prevent the horrors of war and promote human rights, has become a symbol of ineffectiveness. UN resolutions condemning Israeli actions have been met with vetoes by powerful member states, most notably the United States, rendering the institution powerless. Year after year, the Security Council has been paralyzed, and while the UN General Assembly passes resolutions condemning the violence, these carry no legal weight.

The UN Secretary-General’s recent statements, calling for ceasefires and peace negotiations, are admirable but fall far short of addressing the root problem: the lack of enforcement. If international law cannot be enforced against powerful states, particularly when geopolitical interests are involved, it loses credibility in the eyes of the world. On the one hand, Israel has declared the UN Secretary-General as “persona non grata.” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz claimed that Guterres, whom he described as anti-Israel, ‘supports terrorists, rapists, and murderers.’

In a written statement released by the Foreign Ministry, it was reported that Guterres was declared ‘persona non grata’ for not explicitly condemning the Iranian missile attack on Israel. ‘No one who cannot unequivocally condemn Iran’s vile attack on Israel deserves to set foot on Israeli soil,’ Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a statement, claiming that Guterres, whom he described as anti-Israel, ‘supports terrorists, rapists, and murderers.’ Katz also argued that Guterres stands with Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and now Iran, which he described as ‘the mother of global terrorism,’ and said that Guterres will go down in UN history as a ‘black stain.’ As we can see, Israel demands not only substantial support from individual states but also knee-jerk support from international organizations.

The Failure of Political Will

The problem, however, extends beyond institutional failures. At its core, the crisis reflects a lack of political will among world leaders to prioritize human rights and justice over strategic alliances and national interests. Israel’s position as a close ally of the United States and other Western powers shields it from meaningful consequences. This political reality undermines international law, creating a world where rules apply only to the weak, while the powerful operate with impunity. As public trust in international organizations erodes, so does the belief in the effectiveness of international law. This erosion has long-term consequences, not only for the Palestinian people but for global stability. If the world allows the precedent of unchecked violence and lawlessness to continue, other conflicts may follow, and other authoritarian regimes may exploit the international system’s weaknesses.

Where Do We Go from Here?

The current situation demands more than empty rhetoric and non-binding resolutions. If international law is to remain a force for justice, it must be enforced consistently, without regard to political alliances. This requires a fundamental overhaul of global institutions like the UN, which must become more democratic and less beholden to the vetoes of powerful nations. International courts, such as the International Criminal Court (ICC), must be empowered to investigate and prosecute war crimes without political interference. The world cannot afford to stand idly by while a humanitarian catastrophe unfolds in Palestine and now threatens to engulf Lebanon. Global leaders must rise above their national interests and act in the name of justice, not only for the sake of the Palestinian people but for the integrity of international law itself. The time for decisive action is now, and the world must not let another year of violence and impunity pass.

Erosion of Public Trust

International law, particularly humanitarian law, is designed to protect human rights, prevent atrocities, and promote peace and justice on a global scale. Organizations like the United Nations (UN), the International Criminal Court (ICC), and various international treaties are supposed to provide mechanisms for accountability. However, when these institutions are unable—or unwilling—to enforce their rules, public trust in them erodes.

That Israel can attack Palestinians, routinely violating international law without consequence, sends a message to the global public that these laws are impotent. The inability to hold powerful states accountable creates the perception that international law is applied selectively, undermining its legitimacy. People lose faith in these institutions when they see that global powers can act with impunity, leading to cynicism about the entire international order. This erosion of trust can be deeply damaging. Citizens around the world may start to believe that international organizations are incapable of protecting human rights or negotiating an end to wars. The loss of confidence in these bodies weakens their authority, making it harder for them to mediate future conflicts, provide humanitarian aid, or broker peace agreements.

A Global Crisis for Humanity

When international law fails, it is not just the immediate victims of conflict who suffer. The breakdown of these systems can lead to a broader global crisis for humanity. The unchecked violation of human rights and international humanitarian law contributes to a cycle of violence, displacement, and instability that affects millions. Refugee crises, for example, often stem from conflicts where international law is disregarded, forcing entire populations to flee their homes in search of safety. Moreover, when international organizations are unable to intervene effectively, it emboldens other states or actors to disregard international norms, setting a dangerous precedent. This can lead to a proliferation of conflicts and human rights abuses, as countries see that there are no real consequences for violating international law. The result is a global jungle where might makes right, and the rules meant to protect the vulnerable are ignored.

In the long term, this instability can contribute to global crises, such as the rise of extremism, the collapse of states, and increased poverty and suffering. When people no longer believe that international law can protect them, they may turn to other, often more violent, forms of resistance or support authoritarian regimes that promise stability over justice. This creates a vicious cycle where international organizations lose their ability to intervene meaningfully, further eroding trust and exacerbating global instability.

Beyond the undeniable failure of institutions, courts, and international law, this situation sends a stark message to the world: if what is happening in Gaza and Lebanon were to happen to us, there would be no mechanism or institution to protect us. Perhaps this is the intended outcome — to make us feel utter despair, to break our spirit, and to compel us to bow to power. But it is precisely for this reason that we will continue to resist, to fight, and to defend human rights with as much resolve as the people of Gaza.