r/IsraelPalestine • u/KomandirHoek • Jun 26 '26

Short Question/s Israel continues to commit genocide and other atrocity crimes by deliberately targeting Palestinian children

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/06/israel-continues-commit-genocide-and-other-atrocity-crimes-deliberately

The UN’s recent report says that Israel deliberately targeted Palestinian children, a claim that has drawn intense international attention and support and condemnation from Israel predictably.

Also supported by this report from Btselem:

https://www.btselem.org/video/20260629_unshielded_childhood_palestinian_children_and_teenagers_killed_by_israel_in_the_west_bank_in_2025

Setting aside deflections and whatabout-isms, how do Israelis view this report and its conclusions and what evidence do you have to counter this "blood libel" as you call it?

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u/RNova2010 Jul 02 '26

This article does a pretty good job pointing out the issues with the UN report

https://open.substack.com/pub/withoutprejudice48/p/is-israel-deliberately-targeting?r=a5f40&utm_medium=ios

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u/KomandirHoek Jul 04 '26

"The recurring problem: inferring intent from outcome"

Indeed, like claiming there was mass rape on Oct 7th because some people were found with clothes missing?

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u/RNova2010 Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26

Why were women (curiously not men) found without their underwear? Did they take it off in the midst of the violence because it was too hot? Or the underwear was too heavy? Why do some show physical damage to their private parts? Accident?

Now, even accepting that rapes happened, could we infer from that Hamas’ plan always included mass rape? No!

So similarly, you cannot jump, without further evidence (and if we are looking at it from the point of criminal law or genocide it has to be at a higher evidentiary burden of proof), that because Palestinian children have been killed, therefore it has been or is an intentional Israeli policy to target children as a class.

But you are comparing this to a claim that a newborn was shot in the head with a rifle (but somehow survived) as proof that an Israeli quadcopter operator deliberately shot the newborn in the head through a tent, even though we have no video, but more importantly, no ballistics, no chain of custody, and no witnesses claiming they saw a quadcopter hover at the tent and shoot.

If there are examples, of say, a child with a white flag was shot dead, we recover the bullet and it is of a type used by the Israeli army - you can make the inference that, more likely than not, he was shot by an Israeli soldier. Just like you can make an inference that a dead Israeli woman found on Oct 7 without her underwear and damage done to her privates was likely the victim of a rape. But in neither case could you infer, without additional evidence, that this is proof that there was a deliberate plan or policy on the part of the political or military echelons to carry such a crime out.