President Asif Ali Zardari on Thursday called on influential countries and the international community to impose a "meaningful cost" on Israel for crimes against Palestinian children and to prevent the recurrence of such atrocities, which were exposed in a recent United Nations inquiry.
UN Inquiry Findings on Deliberate Targeting of Children
Israeli authorities and security forces deliberately targeted Palestinian children, resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in Gaza, as well as war crimes in the occupied West Bank, the independent UN inquiry said on Tuesday. The report by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel examined violations against Palestinian children since the start of the conflict between Israel and Hamas on October 7, 2023.
Around 30% of those killed in the Gaza conflict were children, the report found. The UN commission stated that Palestinian children were deliberately targeted and killed during the war, including after a ceasefire came into effect in October 2025. This was a key element establishing genocidal intent by Israeli authorities and security forces to destroy the Palestinian group, in whole or in part, in Gaza.
President Zardari's Response and Call for Accountability
Responding to the inquiry's findings, the president said in a post on X that he was "deeply disturbed" by them. "The reported killing of over 20,000 children is a stain on our collective conscience. Pakistan strongly condemns these atrocities and calls for immediate accountability. The international community, particularly influential countries, must impose a meaningful cost on Israel for these crimes and take effective measures to prevent their recurrence," the president said. He also called for an end to the violence and the protection of Palestinian children in accordance with international law.
President Zardari further expressed grave concern over the UN findings, stating, "I am deeply disturbed by the findings of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry, which concludes that Palestinian children in Gaza have been deliberately targeted, resulting in unprecedented loss of life."
Child Death Statistics and Comparisons
The report found that the proportion of children killed was higher than in previous conflicts. Between October 7, 2023, and October 7, 2025, at least 20,179 children were killed, around 30% of the overall death toll. By comparison, in hostilities in Gaza in 2008–2009 and 2014, children made up approximately 24% of conflict-related fatalities, the report said.
Israeli forces continued to use high-payload munitions and weapons with wide-area effects in densely populated residential areas despite mounting child casualties, the commission said. "This indicates that such attacks, which killed children in such high numbers, were intentional," it added.
Broader Impact on Children's Health and Development
The inquiry also found that children were targeted collectively because the Israeli security forces considered the civilian population as a whole to be associated with Hamas and other armed groups. Conditions imposed by Israel in Gaza, including widespread attacks, repeated displacement, and starvation caused by the blockade of aid, food, and medicine, severely harmed children's health and development, resulting in preventable deaths and trauma, the report said.
Attacks on healthcare and reproductive facilities impacted the survival of newborns and reported increases in miscarriages. Nearly all children in Gaza were reported to require psychological support.
