Torture and Physical Abuse of Children in Gaza Declared War Crimes
Over 8,554 grave violations against children have occurred in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories during the ongoing conflict. Credit: UN News
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 26 2026 (IPS)
The ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which began October 2023, has claimed the lives of more than 73,600 Palestinians and about 1,195 Israelis. But there are widespread charges accusing Israel of war crimes, genocide, torture and the abuse of Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails.
But these crimes continue despite warnings and condemnations by international bodies—including the United Nations, the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the Human Rights Council—with none of them having the power of enforcement.
A question at the UN press briefing March 24 highlighted a horrible crime unprecedented in any recent conflict.
Question: Multiple news outlets reported that Israeli soldiers tortured a one-year-old Palestinian child named Karim Abu Nasr in Gaza to pressure his father. The child reportedly suffered cigarette burns, marks, and nail wounds. Did you see this report?
UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric: I have seen the horrific description of that report, which clearly needs to be investigated, and reading the report itself is just horrific.
Dr. Alon Ben-Meir, a retired professor of international relations, most recently at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University, who taught courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies, told Inter Press Service the report about the one-year-old (often described as 18 months old) Karim Abu Nassar being tortured by Israeli soldiers in Gaza is being widely carried by pro-Palestinian and regional outlets and is attributed to a specific named journalist and Palestine TV.
Multiple outlets however, including TRT World, Daily Sabah, Anadolu Agency syndication, and advocacy or solidarity networks, report a very similar narrative, said Dr. Ben-Meir.
The child, identified as Karim (or Jawad) Abu Nassar, was detained with his father near Al Maghazi in central Gaza. Palestine TV, citing a Gaza-based journalist, Osama al Kahlout, says Israeli soldiers tortured the child during the father’s interrogation, including extinguishing cigarettes on his leg, pricking him, and inserting a metal nail into his leg.
A medical report confirmed burn marks from cigarettes and puncture wounds from a nail. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) facilitated his release about 10 hours later, while the father remains detained, he said.
“Visual posts on social media show a toddler with bandaged or visibly injured legs, identified as Karim, which is consistent with the allegations of named local sources and official Palestinian media.”
Documented torture and ill treatment of Palestinian children
“There is substantial and mounting documentation that Israeli forces have systematically tortured, severely ill treated, or disappeared Palestinian children, including in Gaza since 7 October 2023,” said Dr. Ben-Meir.
Meanwhile, the UN Secretary General’s report on children and armed conflict documents over 8,000 grave violations against children in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory, including verified cases of detention and ill treatment of Palestinian children by Israeli armed and security forces.
The same report notes 906 Palestinian children were detained in 2023, and that 84 children reported ill treatment during detention, along with reports of detention and sexual violence against children in Gaza.
Dr. Ramzy Baroud, Editor of Palestine Chronicle and former Managing Editor of the London-based Middle East Eye, told IPS “Dujarric is correct. This is horrific. In fact, it is beyond horrific. Equally frightening is that what has befallen this little boy, Karim, and his family is not an isolated incident but a repeated reality that has manifested itself in countless ways throughout the genocide.”
There are 21,000 ‘Karims’ who have been killed in the most brutal ways, he said. “Tens of thousands more have been wounded, maimed, or remain lifeless under the rubble of a fully destroyed Gaza.”
It is also horrific that those who tortured this one-year-old boy remain free to carry out further crimes. Those responsible for killing, torturing, and maiming Gaza’s children—and their parents—continue to face no accountability.
Equally disturbing, said Dr. Baroud, is that the United Nations, at best, can acknowledge the horror yet fails to stop it, rendering international law of no practical relevance to Palestinians.
“What use are words to those who have perished in the Israeli genocide of Gaza? What use are reports, discussions, investigations, and lamentations if the perpetrators are not held accountable?”
“I am familiar with the report, and as devastating as it is, it merely mirrors countless other accounts of children who have endured similar fates—and worse.”
Palestinians are demanding action. Without it, the horror will continue, no matter how many words are written or reports are produced to recognize it, declared Dr. Baroud.
Meanwhile, the UN’s special rapporteur on Palestine, Francesca Albanese, has called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to pursue arrest warrants for three Israeli ministers she accuses of being responsible for “systematic torture” amounting to genocide.
In a new report presented to the UN Human Rights Council this week, Albanese names National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defence Minister Israel Katz as the primary political figures involved in shaping policies that enabled the torture of Palestinians after 7 October 2023
Amplifying further, Dr. Ben-Meir pointed out that the Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCIP) in a 2025 report states that “Israeli forces killed, maimed, tortured, starved, abducted and displaced Palestinian children every single day in 2025″ and describes widespread torture and ill treatment of children at all stages of detention.
Gazan children were detained and transferred to facilities such as Sde Teiman, where they report being stripped, starved, beaten, confined in cages, subjected to electric shocks, beaten with sticks, and exposed to a “disco room” with deafening music and random assaults—acts that meet standard legal definitions of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, he said.
These accounts are based on multiple child testimonies and legal documentation and are presented as evidence of criminal conduct and war crimes.
“This report is also confirmed by Israeli soldiers who served in Gaza during the war, with whom I spoke.”
Use of children as human shields and related abuse
Peer-reviewed and legal analyses, said Dr. Ben-Meir, also document episodes where Israeli forces used Palestinian children as human shields, which is itself a war crime and frequently accompanied by physical and psychological abuse.
Such practices, given the threats and harm involved, qualify as torture under international law. Tragically, it is a longstanding pattern of abuse of Palestinians, with children among the victims, by Israeli forces.
How to frame this as war crimes
Under the Convention against Torture and the Rome Statute, intentionally inflicting severe physical or mental pain for purposes such as obtaining information or confessions, punishing, intimidating, or coercing, when carried out by state agents in an armed conflict, constitutes torture and a war crime and, when widespread or systematic, can be a crime against humanity.
The Sde Teiman practices—electric shocks, starvation, severe beatings, and sensory torture—clearly meet the same threshold at scale. Coupled with UN-verified patterns of child detention and ill treatment and documented use of children as human shields.
The Karim case, as reported, fits that definition almost perfectly: a state agent intentionally inflicts severe pain on a toddler in front of his father, specifically to force a confession, he said.
“The evidentiary picture strongly supports the argument that Israel has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity involving children,” declared Dr. Ben-Meir.
IPS UN Bureau Report