'Israel' killed 40 Palestinian children in West Bank since January: UN

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: UN
26 Oct 2025 19:39
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'Israel' has intensified its violent campaign across the occupied West Bank, killing dozens of children, expanding settlements, and empowering settlers amid legislative moves toward formal annexation.

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CORRECTS AGE.- Palestinians mourn over the body of 14-year-old Naji al-Baba who the Palestinian Health Ministry said was killed by Israeli forces in the town of Halhul, West Bank, during his funeral on Monday, Nov. 4, 2024 (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

The United Nations confirmed that Israeli occupation forces have killed 40 Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank since the beginning of 2025.

According to UN data, Jenin Governorate recorded the highest toll, with 65 Palestinians martyred, nearly one-third of all victims in the West Bank since January.

The UN further noted that Israeli aggression has also targeted the education sector, documenting more than 90 incidents involving schools that disrupted learning for over 12,000 students between July and September. Many of these incidents involved military raids near schools and settler attacks that forced the temporary closure of classrooms.

During the ongoing olive harvest season, the UN documented at least 86 settler assaults targeting 50 Palestinian villages across the West Bank since October 1. These attacks, often carried out under the protection of Israeli forces, included vandalizing trees, assaulting farmers, and blocking access to agricultural lands.

Escalating Violence and Annexation Drive

The assault comes amid a surge in settler and IOF violence across the occupied West Bank, coinciding with both the olive harvest season and the advancement of legislation in the Israeli Knesset to impose Israeli "sovereignty" over large parts of the territory.

Observers note that since the announcement of the Gaza ceasefire plan, the occupation has escalated its repression in the West Bank, granting settlers free rein to attack Palestinian communities while simultaneously pursuing de jure annexation of Palestinian land.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), settlers carried out 71 attacks on Palestinians between October 7 and 13, half of them targeting farmers during the harvest. The Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission reported 158 attacks on olive harvesters this month alone, including violent assaults, crop theft, and the vandalism of trees. In total, settlers have uprooted or damaged nearly 49,000 olive trees in the past two years.

The Commission further documented over 7,000 settler assaults on Palestinians and their property during the same period, resulting in 33 deaths and the forcible displacement of 33 Bedouin communities. Meanwhile, the United Nations has recorded 757 settler attacks in 2025 alone, with a UN spokesperson for Secretary-General António Guterres condemning the violence as occurring in "an environment defined by a near-total lack of accountability."

Defiance, Annexation, Erasure

Since the war on Gaza began two years ago, Israeli forces and settlers have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians, injured over 10,000, and arrested more than 20,000, including 1,600 children, according to Palestinian authorities. Overnight raids, arbitrary detentions, and land seizures have intensified in towns such as al-Khalil, al-Bireh, and Burqa, while new military checkpoints and settlement outposts tighten the occupation’s grip over the territory.

At the political level, the Israeli Knesset passed a preliminary bill on October 22 to apply "sovereignty" over the West Bank, alongside another measure to annex the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim near occupied al-Quds. Israeli ministers hailed the votes as "historic," calling for full control over "Judea and Samaria," despite international condemnation and US warnings.

In July, the International Court of Justice ruled that "Israel’s" occupation of Palestinian territory is illegal under international law and demanded the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East al-Quds. Yet occupation authorities continue to defy the ruling, entrenching their colonial presence through systematic settlement expansion, land theft, and daily assaults, policies aimed at erasing Palestinian existence on their own land.

A Reuters report, citing Palestinian and UN officials, confirmed that Israeli settlers have intensified their attacks on Palestinian farmers during the harvest, with no measures taken by the occupation authorities to stop the violence. Since the first week of October alone, no fewer than 158 settler assaults have been recorded throughout the West Bank.