Calls death of over 20,000 children a 'stain on collective conscience'
President Asif Ali Zardari on Thursday called on influential countries. the international community to impose a "meaningful cost" on Israel for crimes against Palestinian children and to prevent the recurrence of crimes that were exposed in a recent United Nations inquiry.
Israeli authorities. security forces deliberately targeted Palestinian children, resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, and war crimes in theoccupied 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,. Israel examinedviolations against Palestinian childrensince the start of the conflict between Israel and Hamas on October 7, 2023.
Around 30% of thosekilled in the Gaza conflictwere children, the report found. The UN commission said that Palestinian children were deliberately targeted. killed during the war, including after aceasefire came into effectin October 2025. It said this was a key element establishing genocidal intent by Israeli authorities. security forces to destroy the Palestinian group, in whole or in part, in Gaza.
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. 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 Expresses Grave Concern Over UN Findings on Gaza“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…
The report found that the proportion of children killed was higher than in previous conflicts. Between October 7, 2023. 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. 2014, children made up approximately 24% of conflict-related fatalities, the report said.
Israeli forcescontinued to use high-payload munitions andweapons with wide-area effectsin 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 said.
Read:Dutch report documenting Israeli shootings of Palestinian children in Gaza wins European Press Prize
It said it believed children were targeted collectively because the Israeli security forces considered the civilian population as a whole to be associated with Hamas. other armed groups.
Conditions imposed by Israel in Gaza, including widespread attacks,repeated displacementand starvation caused by the blockade of aid, food. medicine, severely harmed children’s health and development, resulting in preventable deaths and trauma, the report said.
Read More:UNICEF calls Gaza ceasefire a'deadly illusion'
The inquiry also found that attacks on healthcare. reproductive facilities impacted the survival of newborns and reported increases in miscarriages, and that nearly all children in Gaza were reported to require psychological support.
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