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The South African Communist Party (SACP) welcomes the UN independent commission’s confirmation that the apartheid Israeli regime continues to commit genocide and other atrocities by deliberately targeting Palestinian children

Thursday, 25 June 2026: The South African Communist Party (SACP) welcomes the latest report by the UN independent commission of inquiry confirming that the apartheid Israeli settler regime continues to commit genocide and other atrocities by deliberately targeting Palestinian children.

These findings must be followed by the swift international isolation of apartheid Israel and the international prosecution of the Israeli regime’s leaders for the crimes.

In its report released on 23 June, which condemns apartheid Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel found that, since 7 October 2023, Israel’s unending bombardment of Palestine has resulted in the death of at least 20,179 and injury of 44,143 children.

The Israeli regime’s murderous rampage since October 2023 has led to the death of over 100,000 Palestinians in Gaza. This factors the direct death of more than 73,039 Palestinians as well as indirect deaths caused by the regime’s bombardments, including missing individuals presumed dead under the rubble and deaths from disease. Over 173,388 have been injured.

The report states, further, that the killing of Palestinian children is not accidental but deliberate, as it is targeted – and Israel has continued to do so post the October 2025 Gaza peace plan. There is also a sharp increase in violence perpetrated by members of Israeli settlers against Palestinian children in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The regime and its settlers have killed at least 1,103 Palestinians, including 241 children, in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

In addition to the destruction of Palestinian infrastructure, the commission found that Israel’s criminal conduct caused physical and mental injuries, mass trauma, orphanhood, separation, disability, repeated displacements, starvation and the collapse of education and healthcare, thus erasing childhood, and will continue to affect children in Gaza throughout their lives.

The colonial regime, with the support of its principal imperialist ally, the US, has further arrested children and subjected them to torture and other severe forms of mistreatment in Israeli prisons and detention facilities, with no information on their whereabouts. It has also used sexual violence against children as part of the collective shaming and oppression entrenched within a prolonged, ethnic, gendered and intergenerational pattern of occupation and hostilities.

In light of the murderous rampage by the genocidal Israeli regime, the commission made recommendations for the cessation of attacks, reparations, accountability and international enforcement of sanctions aimed at advancing child-responsive justice.

The latest UN report shows that the noose is tightening on the apartheid settler regime. The SACP reiterates its call for the international isolation of Israel as well as the international prosecution of its leaders for the crime of genocide and other heinous international crimes. We also reiterate our support for the people of Palestine in their heroic fight for their liberation and call for global support for the Palestinians in their liberation struggle.

Issued by the South African Communist Party