Gaza Herald — More than 20,000 Palestinian children have been killed in Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza, while the Israeli military relies on internal pseudo-investigations designed to shield perpetrators and evade accountability, according to a recent media report.
The report highlights that children under the age of 18 account for more than 20,000 of the total Palestinian deaths in Gaza, a devastating average of roughly 28 children slaughtered every single day since the aggression began.
Exposing the farce of military self-policing, the report examined the Israeli army’s internal reviews of several high-profile massacres, including the murder of five-year-old Hind Rajab and the execution of the Palestinian medics dispatched to save her.
Rather than delivering justice, these military probes function as an institutional cover-up intended to protect military commanders and soldiers from criminal prosecution.
The Murder of Hind Rajab
Hind Rajab was targeted when the vehicle carrying her fleeing family came under intense Israeli shelling and gunfire during attacks on northern Gaza.
On January 29, 2024, Hind made a frantic call for help to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, surviving for agonizing hours trapped inside the vehicle surrounded by the bodies of her slain relatives.
When rescuers finally reached the site days later, they discovered Hind dead inside the shredded, bullet-riddled vehicle alongside six family members.
Two Palestinian Red Crescent paramedics, Yusuf al-Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun, who had coordinated their route with occupation authorities to rescue the child, were deliberately targeted and killed in their ambulance nearby.
While Hind’s case triggered global outrage, the report emphasizes that thousands of Palestinian children have been killed under equally horrifying conditions away from the spotlight of international media.
Systematic Impunity and Institutionalized Violence
The report concludes that Israel’s internal investigation apparatus serves a singular purpose: burnishing its international image while providing top-to-bottom cover for grave violations of international law.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed under identical conditions of systematic violence and deliberate disregard for human life. Yet, the vast majority of these killings are dismissed without even the pretense of a criminal probe, particularly when they lack international political pressure.
To date, the Israeli military has failed to hold a single officer or soldier criminally responsible for unlawful attacks against Palestinian civilians, despite the widespread destruction of entire civilian infrastructure and residential areas across Gaza.
The human cost of this unchecked violence is unimaginable: more than 2,000 complete Palestinian family lineages have been erased from Gaza’s civil registry.
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, the total casualties of the Israeli assault have surpassed 73,417 Palestinians killed and over 174,360 wounded, with thousands more trapped beneath the rubble.
For Palestinians, these figures represent stolen futures and a continuation of systemic violence. The total control of investigative mechanisms by the very military carrying out the strikes ensures that true justice remains unreachable through domestic Israeli channels, highlighting the urgent need for international criminal legal enforcement and an immediate end to systemic impunity.
