Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. File
| Photo Credit: AP

Mourners gather for a mass burial of around 100 Palestinians, including 62 children, whose remains where recovered from rubble, in Gaza City. File
| Photo Credit: AFP

Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) President Mehbooba Mufti. File
| Photo Credit: PTI

(This article is part of the View From India newsletter curated by The Hindu’s foreign affairs experts. To get the newsletter in your inbox every Monday, subscribe here.

A photograph of a large group of Palestinian children, seated and lying amid the rubble and ruin in Gaza, watching the ‘Lion King’ projected on a screen, has gone viral on ‘X’. Shot by freelance photojournalist Omar Ashtawy, the image is a stark commentary on how the fast pace of the global news cycle, focused largely on self-absorbed world leaders and their erratic actions, has a way of obscuring some of the biggest stories of our time.

Nearly three years into Israel’s war on Gaza — now widely acknowledged as a genocide — claiming over 70,000 lives so far, this is the everyday reality of children in Gaza.

The violence simply does not let up. The killings have not ceased. On Sunday, an Israeli airstrike killed two Palestinians, including a three-year-old child, in the central Gaza Strip. Israel is now threatening to expel them for flying kites. Reports also tell us that the killing of Palestinian children and teens by Israel has surged in West Bank. The children watch Uncle Scar’s power-hungry schemes, that place little value on life, perhaps unaware of how his human counterparts in the real world have upended own lives.

If we were to turn the spotlight on India, New Delhi’s stance is hardly inspiring hope. Speaking to The Hindu, Palestinian Foreign Minister Varsen Aghabekian Shahin said India needs to be more vocal about violations of international law and use its global weight to push for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. New Delhi must also examine arms transfers to Israel seriously, she told Stanly Johny in this interview. “They need to be vocal about what is right and what is wrong, and they need to be vocal about violations of international law. This is what is expected of India,” she said. You could also watch it here.

As the United States and President Donald Trump, who have been steadfastly backing Israel’s war on Gaza, get more confrontational with Iran yet again, the news cycle is focussed on that. Iran’s attacks on American warships outside the Strait of Hormuz and the U.S.’s retaliatory strikes on three Iranian oil tankers in the Gulf waters recently pointed to another escalation in a war that has already persisted six-months. The Hindu editorial today weighed in on the development and contended: “As both sides seek escalation dominance, the war risks spiralling out of control. America is visibly under pressure. Mr. Trump has to accept the cold fact that he has lost this war and return to reviving the MoU before it is too late.”

The other recent event that hogged headlines was the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, from August 31 to September 1, 2026. Notably, PM Modi joined the statement slamming the US and Israel for the war in Iran. Is India shifting its position, or just making friends ahead of the upcoming BRICS summit in New Delhi and Pakistan’s Presidency of the SCO next year?

Do read Kallol Bhattacherjee’s profile of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, or the house of multilaterals, and watch Worldview with Suhasini Haidar for a breakdown of what transpired.

Region in focus

Closer to home, we are tracking Nepal’s painful recovery from the recent devastating floods. The disaster posed an unprecedented challenge, Australian rescue expert Arnold Dix said on Monday (September 7, 2026), with multiple search operations underway in Himalayan hydropower tunnels. The August 26 glacial and mountain collapse on the China-Nepal border killed at least 1,385 people, with more than 5,500 missing across the two countries.

However, fresh concerns triggered by the glacial collapse are unlikely to sway Beijing’s plans to go ahead with the construction of a mega dam on the lower reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo, or the Brahmaputra River, in a seismically active region in Tibet near the border with India, our China Correspondent Ananth Krishnan reported. “ Of concern to India is how much water is likely to be stored in the reservoir and how the tunnel will affect downstream flows, as well as possible broader ecological impacts. The lack of information has posed an obstacle in assessing the possible impact.”

Our Notebook column this week was a reflection on the major climate shocks witnessed in the region in quick succession. The floods in Pakistan in 2022, floods in different parts of India over the last few years, the cyclone in Sri Lanka in 2025, and now, Nepal’s staggering floods. A Pakistani friend recently shared a 2009 piece from Himal Southasian on her social media. Authored by former diplomat Shyam Saran, it contended that South Asia is an ecologically interconnected system and called for a collaborative response to the climate crisis. Journalists in the region, however, have had more stories about natural disasters than collective strategies to tell.

Another exclusive we bring to you this week is Suhasini Haidar’s interview with Bangladesh’s ousted, former PM Sheikh Hasina. “How can a press conference damage India-Bangladesh relations? I did not know that I was so powerful that one press conference of mine could damage Bangladesh’s foreign policy,” she said.

Published – September 07, 2026 01:56 pm IST

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz. FIle
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Israeli authorities and security forces deliberately targeted Palestinian children, ‌resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, and war crimes in the ​occupied West Bank, an independent U.N. inquiry said on Tuesday (June 23, 2026).

The report by the U.N. Independent ⁠International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel examined violations against Palestinian children since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas on October 7, 2023.

Also read | Bullets, bombs, starvation are killing Gaza’s children 

Around 30% of those killed in the Gaza war were children, the report ‌found.

A previous report by the commission in September found that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza and that top Israeli officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu incited these acts — accusations that Israel called scandalous.

Israel’s ‌mission in Geneva said Israel rejected what it called the Commission’s “second defamatory advocacy report”.

“Israel dismisses this libelous ‌sham,” ⁠it said in a statement, adding that “every child deserves protection” and asserting that the report ignored “the brutal ⁠tactics of Hamas”.

The U.N. commission said that Palestinian children were deliberately targeted and killed during the war, including after a ceasefire came into effect in October 2025. It said this was a key element establishing genocidal intent by Israeli authorities and security forces to destroy the Palestinian ​group, in whole or in part, in Gaza.

“The evidence ‌shows that Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted and killed by the Israeli security forces,” said Srinivasan Muralidhar, the commission’s chair, in a statement accompanying the report.

Child deaths

The report found that the proportion of children killed was higher than in previous conflicts. Between October 7, 2023 and October 7, 2025, at least 20,179 children were killed, ‌around 30% of the overall death toll.

By comparison, in hostilities in Gaza in 2008–2009 and 2014, children ​made up approximately 24% of conflict-related fatalities, the report said.

Israeli forces continued to use high-payload munitions and weapons with wide-area effects in densely populated residential areas despite mounting child casualties, the commission ⁠said.

“This indicates that such attacks, which killed children in such high numbers, were intentional,” it said. It said it believed children were targeted collectively because the Israeli security forces considered the civilian population as a whole to be associated with Hamas ‌and other armed groups.

A rebuttal shared by Israel’s mission in Geneva said Israel “consistently strives to minimize harm to children even in situations of conflict” and that Israel rejected the suggestion it deliberately targets children “in the strongest terms”.

Mr. Muralidhar said that by targeting children, Israel was undermining the capacity of the Palestinian people to exist and to determine their future.

Conditions imposed by Israel in Gaza, including widespread attacks, repeated displacement and starvation caused by the blockade of aid, food and medicine, severely harmed children’s health and development, resulting in preventable deaths and trauma, the report said.

The inquiry also found that ‌attacks on healthcare and reproductive facilities impacted the survival of newborns and reported increases in miscarriages, and that nearly all children in Gaza were ​reported to require psychological support.

Israel’s rebuttal said the report failed to mention Israel’s role in facilitating vaccinations and the entry of medical staff, and the establishment of field hospitals. It accused Hamas ⁠of systematically diverting humanitarian aid and fuel for hospitals. Hamas has rejected such accusations.

West Bank

In the West Bank, including East ⁠Jerusalem, the Commission found a sharp increase in violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinian children and documented evidence of torture, including sexual and gender-based violence, during mass arrests and detention.

It said Palestinian children, particularly boys, were subjected ‌to systematic mistreatment in detention, including forced stripping, beatings and food deprivation.

The commission concluded that the treatment constituted the crimes against humanity of torture and other inhumane acts causing great suffering or serious injury.

Israel’s rebuttal said ​the report’s findings on the West Bank omitted context on the “constant terrorist threat” that it said Israeli security forces were responding to.

Published – June 24, 2026 05:21 am IST

Palestinians gather around the remains of a police vehicle destroyed in an Israeli strike that killed several people, in Gaza City on April 14, 2026.
| Photo Credit: AFP

The U.N. said Thursday (January 1, 2026) that a Palestinian boy in the Gaza Strip drowned in floods that engulfed his tent camp, with videos showing rescuers trying to pry his body out of muddy waters by pulling him by the ankle. It was the latest sign of the miseries that winter is inflicting on the territory’s population, with many left homeless by the devastation from two years of war.

Health officials also reported the death of another 9 year-old boy in Gaza Thursday, but the circumstances were not clear.

Meanwhile, in the West Bank, Israeli forces carried out a sweep of arrests, seizing around 50 Palestinians, many from their homes, a Palestinian group representing prisoners said.

As 2026 begins, the shaky 12-week-old ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has largely ended large-scale Israeli bombardment of Gaza. But Palestinians are still being killed almost daily by Israeli fire, and the humanitarian crisis shows no signs of abating. At least three Israeli soldiers have died in Gaza since the ceasefire came down, killed by militant attacks or explosive detonations.

UNICEF said Thursday that 7-year-old Ata Mai had drowned Saturday in severe flooding that engulfed his tent camp in Gaza City. Mai’s was the latest child death reported in Gaza as storms, cold weather and flooding worsen already brutal living conditions. Almost the entire population of more than 2 million people have lost their homes, and most are living in squalid tent camps with little protection from the weather.

UNICEF said Mai had been living with his younger siblings and family in a camp of around 40 tents. They lost their mother earlier in the war.

Video from Civil Defense teams, shown on Al Jazeera, showed rescue workers trying to get Mai’s body out of what appeared to be a pit filled with muddy water surrounded by wreckage of bombed buildings. The men waded into the water, pulling at the boy’s ankle, the only part of his body visible. Later, the body is shown wrapped in a muddy cloth being loaded into an ambulance.

Over past weeks, cold winter rains have repeatedly lashed the sprawling tent cities, causing flooding, turning Gaza’s dirt roads into mud and causing buildings damaged in Israeli bombardment to collapse. UNICEF says at least six children, including Mai, have now died of weather-related causes, including a 4-year-old who died in a building collapse.

The Gaza Ministry of Health says three children have died of hypothermia.

“Teams visiting displacement camps reported appalling conditions that no child should endure, with many tents blown away or collapsing entirely,” said Edouard Beigbeder, regional director for UNICEF’s Middle East and North Africa division.

The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society said Israeli troops had arrested at least 50 Palestinians across the West Bank and interrogated many of them overnight. Most of the arrests occurred in the Ramallah area, said the group, which is an official body within the Palestinian Authority.

“These operations were accompanied by widespread raids, abuse and assault against detainees and their families, in addition to extensive acts of vandalism and destruction inside citizens’ homes,” the group alleged.

Israel’s military did not immediately comment on the raid.

The society says that Israel has arrested 7,000 Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem this year, and 21,000 since the war began Oct. 7, 2023. The number arrested from Gaza is not made public by Israel.

Violence in the West Bank has surged during the war in Gaza, with the Israeli military carrying out large-scale operations targeting militants that have killed hundreds of Palestinians and displaced tens of thousands. There has also been a rise in Israeli settler violence and Palestinian attacks on Israelis.

A nine-year-old boy, Youssef Shandaghi, died in Jabaliya in northern Gaza, not far from the so-called “Yellow Line,” the ceasefire demarcation between the more than half of the Gaza Strip still held by the Israeli military and the rest of the territory, where most of the population lives.

Two officials from Gaza’s Shifa Hospital, Director Mohammed Abu Selmiya and Managing Director Rami Mhanna, said the boy was killed by Israeli gunfire coming from across the Yellow Line. Abu Selmiya cited the report from the doctor who received Shandaghi’s body. Israel’s military said it had no knowledge of the incident.

But an uncle of the boy said he was killed by unexploded ordnance he had come across while playing. It was not immediately possible to reconcile the conflicting accounts.

Israeli troops almost daily open fire on Palestinians who come too close to the Yellow Line, often killing or wounding some, according to medical personnel and witnesses. The Israeli military says it fires warning shots if someone crosses the line and fires at anyone judged to be posing a threat to troops. It has acknowledged some civilians have been killed, including young children.

Since the ceasefire began, 416 Palestinians have been killed and 1,142 wounded in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry. The overall Palestinian death toll from the war is at least 71,271. The ministry, which does not distinguish between militants and civilians in its count, is staffed by medical professionals and maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by the international community.

Published – January 02, 2026 05:22 am IST

Israel’s Security cabinet approved the establishment of 19 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, a move the country’s far-right Finance Minister said on Sunday (December 21, 2025) was aimed at preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state.

The decision brings the total number of settlements approved over the past three years to 69, according to a statement from the office of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

Also Read | Israeli forces kill Palestinian men in West Bank after they appear to surrender

The latest approvals come days after the United Nations said the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank — all of which are considered illegal under international law — had reached its highest level since at least 2017.

“The proposal by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defence Minister Israel Katz to declare and formalise 19 new settlements in Judea and Samaria has been approved by the Cabinet,” the statement said, without specifying when the decision was taken.

Mr. Smotrich is a vocal proponent of settlement expansion and a settler himself. “On the ground, we are blocking the establishment of a Palestinian terror state,” he said in the statement. “We will continue to develop, build, and settle the land of our ancestral heritage, with faith in the justice of our path.”

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has recently condemned what he described as Israel’s “relentless” expansion of settlements in the occupied territory.

It “continues to fuel tensions, impede access by Palestinians to their land and threaten the viability of a fully independent, democratic, contiguous and sovereign Palestinian state”, he said earlier this month.

Since the start of the war in Gaza, calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state have proliferated, with several European countries, Canada and Australia recently moving to formally recognise such a state, drawing rebukes from Israel.

Sharp increase

A U.N. report said the expansion of settlements was at its highest point since 2017, when the United Nations began tracking such data.

“These figures represent a sharp increase compared to previous years,” Mr. Guterres said, noting an average of 12,815 housing units were added annually between 2017 and 2022. “These developments are further entrenching the unlawful Israeli occupation and violating international law and undermining the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.”

Excluding East Jerusalem, which was occupied and annexed by Israel in 1967, more than 500,000 Israelis live in the West Bank, along with about three million Palestinian residents.

Mr. Smotrich’s office said the 19 newly approved settlements are located in what it described as “highly strategic” areas, adding that two of them — Ganim and Kadim in the northern West Bank — would be re-established after being dismantled two decades ago.

Five of the 19 settlements already existed but had not previously been granted legal status under Israeli law, the statement said.

While all Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territory are considered illegal under international law, some wildcat outposts are also illegal in the eyes of the Israeli government.

Many of these, however, are later legalised by Israeli authorities, fuelling fears about the possible annexation of the territory.

U.S. President Donald Trump has warned Israel about annexing the West Bank. “Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened,” Mr. Trump said in a recent interview to Time magazine.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, and violence there has soared since the Gaza war erupted in October 2023 following Hamas’s attack on Israel.

Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 1,027 Palestinians in the West Bank both militants and civilians — since the start of the fighting in Gaza, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian Health Ministry figures.

At least 44 Israelis have been killed in the West Bank in Palestinian attacks or Israeli military operations during the same period, according to Israeli data.

Published – December 21, 2025 04:50 pm IST