Israeli forces and armed Jewish settlers are carrying out increasingly coordinated attacks on Palestinian children across the occupied West Bank, with documented incidents including shootings, stabbings, beatings and the use of pepper spray, the UN’s children’s agency has said.
Speaking to reporters in Geneva on Tuesday, UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said: “We’re seeing attacks become increasingly coordinated. Documented incidents include children shot, stabbed, children beaten and children pepper-sprayed.”
At least 70 Palestinian children have been killed in the occupied West Bank since January 2025 — an average of one a week — and a further 850 have been injured, the vast majority by live Israeli ammunition, according to UNICEF figures.
The agency said March 2026 had recorded the highest number of Palestinians injured by settler attacks in the past 20 years. “All this comes amid historic levels of settler attacks,” Elder said.
Recalling a recent visit to the occupied territory, the UNICEF spokesperson described meeting an eight-year-old Palestinian boy who had been beaten with a piece of wood during a settler attack and hospitalised for head injuries. The boy’s mother, he said, “had both her arms broken when she reached across to protect her four-month-old baby, putting therefore her arms between her baby and the attacker’s club.”
Elder also highlighted a sharp increase in attacks targeting Palestinian education, including the killing, injury and detention of students and the demolition of schools by Israeli forces. “Schools, which should be places of safety and stability, are increasingly becoming places of panic,” he said.
The spokesperson described accompanying Palestinian schoolchildren on their journey to class in an effort to help them avoid being attacked. “It’s interesting to watch them walk… They don’t walk in a straight line because they’re constantly looking over their shoulder,” he said. “This is a walk to school. It’s become a walk through fear.”