The United Nations condemned on Tuesday (May 12, 2026) the toll from swelling Israeli military operations and settler attacks in the occupied West Bank on children, with 70 Palestinian children killed since early 2025.

“Children are paying an intolerable price for escalating military operations and settler attacks across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem,” UN children’s agency spokesman James Elder told reporters.

Since January 2025, when Israel began a large-scale military operation in the West Bank, “at least one Palestinian child has been killed on average every single week” there, he said, adding that another 850 children had been injured during that period.

“Most of those killed or wounded were done by live ammunition,” he said.

Children shot, stabbed, beaten

Mr. Elder said that Israeli forces were responsible for a full 93% of the children killed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since January 2025, but also pointed to “historic levels of settler attacks”.

According to the UN, March 2026 saw the highest number of Palestinians injured by Israeli settlers in at least 20 years, he said, pointing to “documented incidents (including) children shot, stabbed… beaten”.

Mr. Elder, who recently returned from the West Bank, told the story of one eight-year-old boy, who was asleep when settlers attacked his village.

“His family home had been demolished two months earlier, so he was sleeping outside,” he said, adding that the boy “was beaten with a piece of wood and hospitalised for head injuries”.

The boy’s mother, meanwhile “had both her arms broken when she reached across to protect her four-month-old baby”, he said.

Mr. Elder highlighted that the violent attacks were taking place against the backdrop of the “steady dismantling of the conditions children need to survive and grow”.

“Homes are demolished, education is destroyed, water systems are attacked, access to healthcare is obstructed, movement is restricted,” he said.

A dramatic spike in the number of barriers and restrictions imposed across the West Bank meanwhile meant children were “routinely cut off from schools, from hospitals and other essential services”, he said.

Israeli lawmakers approved a bill on Monday (May 12, 2026) setting up a special tribunal that would try and have the authority to sentence to death Palestinians convicted of taking part in the 2023 Hamas-led attack that triggered the war in Gaza.

The measure passed 93-0 in the 120-seat Knesset, or Parliament, reflecting widespread support for punishing those found responsible for what was the deadliest attack in Israel’s history.

The remaining 27 lawmakers were absent or abstained from voting. Rights groups have criticised the measure, saying it makes the death penalty too easy to impose while also doing away with procedures safeguarding the right to a fair trial.

Defendants can appeal their sentences but the appeals have to be heard by a separate, special appeals court rather than regular appeals courts.

Because the bill empowers a panel of judges to hand down the death penalty by a majority vote — and requires the trials to be conducted in a livestreamed Jerusalem courtroom — it has drawn comparisons to the 1962 trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, which was broadcast live on television.

Eichmann was executed by hanging, the last time the death penalty was carried out in Israel, though technically capital punishment remains on the books for acts of genocide, espionage during wartime and certain terror offenses.

Opponents of the bill also say that livestreaming the proceedings before guilt is established risks turning the trials into a spectacle. They have raised questions about the reliability of the evidence that may be presented, saying it could have been extracted by harsh interrogation methods.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 as hostages. Israel’s ensuing blistering offensive on Gaza has killed over 72,628 Palestinians, including at least 846 killed since a ceasefire took hold last October.

That’s according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants but says around half the deaths were women and children. The figures from the Ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, are generally considered reliable by UN agencies and independent experts.

Israeli forces also killed hundreds of militants in battles in the coastal enclave, and took an unknown number of suspects into Israeli custody where they now await trial.

Simcha Rothman, one of the bill’s sponsors who is part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, said the overwhelming consensus for the bill in the Knesset shows Israeli lawmakers can come together “around a common mission.” Several Israeli rights groups — including Hamoked, Adalah and the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel — said on Monday (May 11) that while “justice for the victims of October 7 is a legitimate and urgent imperative,” any accountability for the crimes “must be pursued through a process which includes rather than abandons the principles of justice.”

The bill is separate from a law passed in March that approved the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of murdering Israelis, a measure harshly condemned by the international community and rights groups as discriminatory and inhumane.

That law applies to future cases and is not retroactive so it could not apply to the October 2023 suspects. According to the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, the country still holds about 1,300 Palestinians from Gaza without charge in its detention facilities.

At least 7,000 Palestinians from Gaza had been held in Israeli custody since October 2023, and 5,000 of them were later released. The 1,300 number does not include those held on suspicion of attacking Israel on October 7 or involvement in holding the hostages.

Israeli strikes killed at least three Palestinians ​in Gaza on Sunday (May 10, 2026), including two members ‌of the Hamas-run police force, ​health officials said, ⁠in violence that underscored the fragility of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire.

Medics said an air strike ‌killed one person in the Maghazi refugee camp in ‌the Gaza Strip, while ‌another ⁠killed the head of the ⁠criminal police force in Khan Younis, Wessam Abdel-Hadi, and his aide, according to ​Gaza’s Hamas-run ‌Interior Ministry.

Reuters has previously reported that Israel has heightened its attacks on Gaza’s Hamas-run police force ‌, which the militants have used ​to re-establish governance in areas under their control.

The Israeli military ⁠didn’t immediately comment on either incident. Violence in Gaza has persisted despite ‌an October 2025 ceasefire, with Israel conducting almost daily attacks.

At least 850 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire took effect, local medics say, while ‌Israel says militants have killed four of ​its soldiers over the same period.

Israel and Hamas have ⁠blamed each other for ceasefire violations. More than ⁠72,500 Palestinians have been killed since the Gaza war ‌started in October 2023, Gaza health authorities say, most of ​them civilians.

An Israeli court on Sunday (May 3, 2026) extended for two days the detention of two foreign activists from a Gaza-bound flotilla, who were brought to Israel for questioning, a rights group representing them said.

The flotilla of more than 50 vessels had set sail from France, Spain and Italy to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza and bring supplies to the devastated Palestinian territory.

Israel’s new death penalty law permitting the execution of Palestinians convicted of deadly attacks perpetuates racial discrimination against them, a United Nations committee said on Friday (May 1, 2026), urging its immediate repeal.

The law amounts to a grave erosion of human rights, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination said in a statement.

Israeli authorities have said they are taking two activists who led an aid flotilla bound for Gaza — and were captured by Israel in international waters of the Mediterranean Sea — to Israel for questioning.

The activists, Palestinian-Spanish citizen Saif Abukeshek and Brazilian citizen Thiago Avila, were among dozens of activists intercepted by the Israeli navy off the coast of Crete.

Israeli authorities are systematically depriving people in Gaza of the water they need to live, Doctors Without Borders warned on Tuesday (April 28, 2026), decrying a campaign of “collective punishment” against Palestinians.

The extensive destruction of civilian water infrastructure in Gaza coupled with obstruction of access constitutes “an integral part of Israel’s genocide”, said the medical charity, which goes by its French acronym MSF.

Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem on Monday (April 27, 2026) rejected Lebanon’s planned direct negotiations with Israel, calling them a “grave sin” that will destabilise Lebanon.

Lebanon and Israel’s U.S. ambassadors held two meetings in Washington over the past weeks, the first of their kind in decades.

More than 60 nations are sending representatives to Brussels to discuss with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohamed Mustafa stability, security and long-term peace in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, as global attention largely remains focused in West Asia on the ongoing crises in Iran and Lebanon.

Ongoing attacks in the West Bank and continued devastation in Gaza dims the prospect for a two-state solution, said Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot ahead of the meeting on Monday (April 20, 2026). He is co-hosting the meeting with the EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas.

Israeli settlers rampaged through multiple Palestinian villages overnight on Saturday (March 21, 2026) and into Sunday (March 22, 2026), smashing cars, setting fires and wounding several men in the latest flare-up of violence in the occupied West Bank.

Also read: West Asia war updates on March 22, 2026

The official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported attacks in at least six communities on Sunday (March 22, 2026). The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said at least three Palestinians in the village of Jalud suffered head wounds from beatings and were hospitalised after confronting settlers, who were also reported injured.

The violence came as Israel’s government presses ahead with new settlements in the occupied West Bank. Attacks by settlers have intensified alongside a broader surge in violence since the Iran war started.

Israel’s military said it responded to Israeli civilians carrying out “arson against structures and property, as well as engaging in disturbances in the area,” but did not report any arrests or indicate whether investigations were opened.

WAFA reported attacks in the villages of Silat al Dahr and Fandaqumiya, both near Jenin; in Jalud and Salfit, both south of Nablus; and in the agricultural regions of Masafer Yatta and the Jordan Valley. Homes and cars were set ablaze, Palestinians were pepper-sprayed and at least five people were wounded in the overnight assaults, which took place during the Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of Ramadan, the agency said.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported 25 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli settlers and soldiers this year as of March 15. The Palestinian Authority has also documented a series of arson attacks, including on mosques, across the territory.