Israel using sophisticated drones and AI to target and kill Palestinian children

Justice Srinivasan Muralidhar, a retired high court chief justice from India and the current chair of the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territory, briefed the media in Geneva on 23 June along with two of his fellow commissioners.

The commission also released a 100-page report detailing the evidence of Israeli security forces deliberately killing Palestinian children in Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem. “Even after the October 2025 ceasefire, children continue to be killed and seriously injured, with continued disregard by Israel for the ceasefire and for the protection owed to Palestinian children under international law,” he said. 

The commission's report documents chilling details. One segment speaks of drone technology being used by Israel to target the children. “You see everything on a screen. You drop the bomb. It feels like a game. You can sit in some basement of a house, safe, with your helmet off, scratching your balls, half-dressed, and kill Palestinians,” said an Israeli soldier on Channel 14, which broadcast interviews with Israeli army personnel. 

The segment showcased several variants of drones or 'quadcopters', demonstrating their high-resolution surveillance and night vision capabilities including electro-optical and infrared (EO/IR) sensor cameras, combining visible light and thermal imaging capabilities to provide continuous, 24/7 situational awareness in various conditions.

On Channel 14, officials of the Israeli security forces confirmed the use of “a new generation of lethal weapons” [referring to quadcopters] in Gaza, adding that quadcopters have an advanced shooting system which allows precise strikes beyond visual range, at a level of accuracy that no human sniper, no matter how skilled, can achieve. Officials of the Israeli security forces emphasised that a quadcopter “does not hesitate, does not stop, and almost never make mistakes,” equating quadcopters to “watching a video game.”

The commission assesses that such quadcopters have been configured to carry a variety of ammunitions, including small bombs, small arms fire and pellets. The Israeli security forces are believed to have mounted shotguns or other assault rifles on quadcopters modified to use small pellets, which are traditionally made of lead, but also of steel and tungsten of different calibres.

Last week, speaking from Amman, UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson James Elder had noted that the children “were not killed in a war zone” but rather in their homes, schools while playing football or fishing. “They were shot, they were bombed, they were struck by quadcopters” operated by the Israeli military, Elder had said. This is borne out by the latest report of the UN Human Rights Council.

The commission found that Palestinian children in Gaza have been explicitly depicted as “terrorists” by Israeli officials in their speeches, statements and rhetoric in Israel's Knesset, media and social media.

On 9 October 2023, Knesset deputy speaker Nissim Vaturi posted on social media: “Erase Gaza. Nothing else will satisfy us. It is not acceptable that we maintain a terrorist authority next to Israel. Do not leave a child there expel all the remaining ones at the end, so that they will not have a resurrection.”

On 30 January 2025, Vaturi again said: “Gaza is full of terrorists and every child born there is already a terrorist, from the moment of his birth.”

“Based on the clustering of injuries and the targeted body parts, I assess that the Israeli soldiers have been deliberately shooting teenage boys in a game of target practice — a different body part being targeted on different days… There is a very clear pattern that suggest this is a deliberate aiming of different body parts [of children],” a doctor who visited Gaza on a medical mission said.

The commission’s latest report records that:

• Israel has killed 20,000 children and injured 44,000 more since 7 October 2023

• Severe physical and mental injuries, mass trauma, orphanhood, separation, disability, repeated displacements, starvation and the collapse of education and healthcare have erased childhood and will continue to affect children in Gaza throughout their lives

• Palestinian children have been arrested and subjected to torture and other severe forms of mistreatment in Israeli prisons and detention facilities, with no information on their whereabouts

• Israeli security forces have 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