Published On 2/7/2026
Childhood innocence in the West Bank has turned into a direct target for the Israeli occupation’s guns, through a systematic shooting policy that increases the rate of killing and intimidation without deterrence.
Guevara Al-Badiri says, in a report she prepared for Al Jazeera, that the blood of Palestinian children is no longer shed due to “individual mistakes,” but rather a translation of an Israeli security doctrine that allows their field execution and the detention of their bodies to intimidate their families and spread fear in the hearts of their comrades.
An ongoing tragedy
In the town of Kafr Malek, north of Ramallah, the room of the martyr Ammar Hamayel (13 years old) encapsulates a chapter of the ongoing tragedy. The child, who was a prominent champion for Palestine in the international sport of “Muay Thai” and carried international medals and honors from tournaments he played in Thailand, Turkey and Malaysia, was assassinated by a bullet from the occupation soldiers while he was playing with his ball at a distance of kilometers from them.
His bereaved mother – as she inspected his sports belongings scented with his scent – recounts how the occupation soldiers detained her wounded, bleeding child for several hours, and prevented ambulance crews from reaching him at gunpoint, until they were sure that he was dead and then handed him his body.
Record numbers
This horrific crime comes within a frightening context of escalation, as the Israeli human rights organization “B’Tselem” documented the killing of 241 children by the occupation army in the West Bank from October 2023 until late June 2024.
During the months of 2024 alone, the occupation killed 54 children, which is the largest number of children killed since the occupation of the West Bank in 1967, in addition to its continued extension of collective punishment by detaining the bodies of 18 children among this year’s martyrs.
Systematic policy
Human rights bodies confirm that this unprecedented killing is not a spontaneous violation of instructions, but rather an Israeli political and security methodology that allows for the liquidation of Palestinians and provides protection for the killers without accountability.
This official cover was embodied in leaks issued by General Avi Bluth, commander of the occupation army in the West Bank, during a closed session, which showed the extent of absolute leniency granted to soldiers to shoot Palestinians, including children.
In his comment on this policy, B’Tselem representative Karim Jubran refuted the army commander’s claims that 96% of those killed were “terrorists”, describing them as false, false and false claims.
The organization’s field investigations prove – according to Gibran – the absence of any justification for killing or the existence of any threat to the lives of occupation soldiers in most cases, which makes the statements of the military leadership an “official statement” and a public authorization to kill Palestinians without accountability or punishment.
Spreading fear and spreading genocide
Specialists believe that the security and political system of the occupation clearly seeks, behind these crimes, to spread comprehensive terror in the present Palestinian consciousness, as children now live in chronic fear of arrest and torture after the martyrdom of their comrades and peers.
Al Jazeera correspondent Guevara Al-Badiri concluded that the scene of frenzied killing in the West Bank cannot be separated from the general scene, as it is a direct extension of a prolonged genocide that resulted in the killing of more than 21,000 Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip in the absence of complete international accountability, as Israel continues to attack childhood and humanity in the killing.
There are more than 9,300 Palestinian prisoners in occupation prisons, in addition to about 350 children under the age of 18, according to Palestinian human rights organizations.
