Israeli Forces Have Killed 235 Palestinian Children in the West Bank Since October 2023, Rights Groups Say

Dania Abu Haikal keeps a stuffed fox at her home in Bethlehem. It belonged to her son, Sam, who was seven months old when Israeli troops opened fire on the family's car in Hebron in June 2026 and shot him in the face. Abu Haikal, 28, was holding him on her lap. A bullet passed through her own cheek and out through her ear, according to her account to AFP. She still carries the scar.

"Why would anyone shoot an infant? What did a little baby, a seven-month-old infant, do to harm the soldiers?" Abu Haikal, a university lecturer, told AFP.

Sam's death is one of 235 the Israeli rights group B'Tselem has documented among Palestinian children and teenagers in the West Bank since 7 October 2023, according to AFP reporting. Five were killed by Israeli settlers rather than soldiers. The Palestinian Authority's Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission, a Palestinian government body, put the figure at 250 over the same stretch, a close match given the two organizations count separately.

A Sharp Break From the Prior Rate

B'Tselem's own longer record supplies the comparison that makes the current toll stand out. Between 2005 and 2021, the group recorded roughly one Palestinian child or teenager killed by Israeli forces per month on average. Using B'Tselem's figures for the period since the Gaza war began, the rate is now close to seven a month, a sevenfold increase.

Last year alone, B'Tselem counted 54 Palestinian children or teenagers killed in the West Bank. The youngest was two years old. Most of the dead were between 14 and 17.

AFP's reporting describes a pattern beyond targeted raids: in several documented cases, Israeli soldiers fired into areas without apparent regard for who was present, killing children caught in the line of fire. The Abu Haikal shooting fits that description, according to the mother's account. No Israeli military statement addressing the incident is cited in the reporting reviewed for this article.

The West Bank has absorbed escalating Israeli military operations and settler activity since October 2023, running parallel to the war in Gaza but drawing far less international scrutiny. The child death toll compiled by B'Tselem and the Palestinian Authority is one of the few hard counts tracking that violence over time, and it shows the pace accelerating rather than slowing nearly three years into the war.

Occupation Watch could not independently verify the circumstances of each of the 235 deaths cited. The figures come from B'Tselem, an established Israeli human rights organization, and a Palestinian Authority commission, whose overlapping totals corroborate the broad scale even where individual case details are not publicly itemized.