Justice Muralidhar asks India to act on this heinous crime
An Israel soldier who bombed the school buildings where there were more than 150 students in Gaza was reminded of his childhood when he hated his school and felt like bombing it. He was elated at the thought which inspired him to throw bombs at Gaza school killing all the young children.
Israeli soldiers killed 20 thousand children and injured 44,143 between 7 October, 2023 and October 2025. The United Nations Independent International Commission headed by Justice Srinvasan Muralidhar, former Chief Justice of Delhi, Odisha High Courts, has accused Israel of deliberately targeting children during its military operations in Palestine. The report called the action “part of a strategy to destroy the biological continuity and future existence of the Palestinian group in Gaza strip and atrocities in West Asia.” It is a demographic destruction.
UN Report: The Systematic Targeting and Tragic Toll of Children in Gaza
Since Hamas attacked Israel on 07 October 2023 and Israel retaliated disproportionately killing thousands of people in Gaza, the UN had published several reports. This latest report is important because it deals exclusively with children messacre. The report has four findings. 1. The scale of death of children is very large. UNICEF described the Gaza strip as most dangerous for a child. 2. There is irrefutable evidence to show that the children were targeted by the soldiers. Children were shot when they were being evacuated. 3. There were systematic attacks on children-essential infrastructure. Israel attached schools, hospitals and orphanages which are listed by the UN as places which should not be touched in war. 4. There were arbitrary detentions, torture and sexual violence on children. The special legal obligation for children was violated at every stage. As an occupying power, Israel has special obligation under the Fourth Geneva Convention. These include ensuing food, medical care and protection of civilians, especially children.
The Commission alleged that Israeli authorities and security forces have “deliberately carried out acts inflicting death and severe bodily and mental harm on tens of thousands of Palestinian children,” and that the killings continued even after the last October’s ceasefire in Gaza.
Precision Targeting of Children
The UN appointed Commission called for an immediate end to attacks on civilians, unrestricted humanitarian help, reparations for victims and action against those responsible for violation of human rights. Justice Muralidhar, born and studied in Tamil Nadu, in his interview to The Indian Express, published on Tuesday, 30 June 2026, said that India cannot afford to ignore what is happening in Gaza. He asked the Indian government “to look at its foreign policy to see whether we are going to permit fundamental humanitarian principles to be given a go-by? If we fail to act on the evidence as shocking as this, we cannot redeem ourselves for the future.” The other two members of the three-member commission headed by Justice Muralidhar are justice Florence Mumba (Zambia) and Chris Sidoti (Australia). All the three members were appointed by United Nations Human Rights Council.
Asked what specific evidence led him to conclude that the killing of children was intentional, justice Muralidhar, who was deliberately not allowed to go to Supreme Court as he gave some judgments which went against the NDA government, explained that there are two methods deployed by Israel in crackdown. One is intensive air strikes in densely populated localities using high-yield bombs. In such instances there are bound to be casualties among children. If there is any country that respects human rights, when it comes to know that high children’ casualties are occurring it would stop bombing. The second method is using a combination of quadcopters (unmanned aerial vehicles), drones and snipers to target children. The quadcopters are fitted with thermal imaging cameras which recognize the child with precision. The Justice asks, “how else do you explain a 10-day old baby being shot through the head with a quadcopter?” He said he saw so many instances where an adult carrying a child is spared but the child is shot.
The Gaza Inquiry’s Methodology
The members of the Commission also interviewed with the treating doctors in Geneva. The doctors testified to finding tiny holes on the upper parts of children’s bodies. Cube-shaped pellets were precisely aimed at the head and neck of the children and fired. The scale is astonishing, Justice Muralidhar (He was first transferred to Punjab and Haryana High Court from Delhi High Court where he was chief justice and then as Chief Justice of Odisha High Court where he retired in 2023) commented. The Commission sent 13 requests to Israel for information and access. All the requests were left unanswered. Then the members of the Commission looked for contra-indications. They called upon people world over to submit any evidence they happen to have. The Commission has at its disposal a highly specialized, multinational team of 12 members. They include military analysts, cyber experts, legal experts and gender experts. Interestingly, even though Israel refused to give any information to the Commission, the Israeli soldiers posted massive incriminating evidence on social media. After all the soldiers also are human beings (except some rogues) though they carried out the inhuman orders of their bosses. The Commission wrote to Hamas and Palestine authorities and got replies. Israel did not care to acknowledge the letters. This is the irony.
Moreover, the Commission had sent the draft of their report to Israel government weeks in advance. There was no response from the government. Instead, the Israel government issued an 18-page rebuttal in which they did not deny the evidence produced by the Commission. The government also did not say that the material, including the videos, sent by their soldiers was manipulated. Israel has been labeling 10 to15 year old boys terrorists. Israel soldiers can kill anyone labeled as terrorist without any compunction. The soldiers were open in their interviews on television that their commanders ordered them to shoot at the target irrespective of the age. Justice Muralidhar said it was not the work of a few rogue soldiers. The rampage has been systematically done according to a plan.
UN Report Labels Israel’s Actions Genocide, Demands International Legal Action
Israel was not content with mass killing of the innocent children. It destroyed 97% of all schools and 22 out of 38 universities. Two days after the first attack, Nissim Vaturi, Deputy Speaker of the Knesset, Israel parliament, posted on social media, ‘Erase Gaza …. Don’t leave a child there. Expel all the remaining ones so that they will not have a resurrection.” That was the rhetoric from the top. The Israeli soldiers also took over the agricultural land and destroyed all the crops. The Commission concluded that Israel’s actions constitute genocide.
UN reports and International Court of Justice (ICJ) orders with regards to Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians are routinely ignored. What difference would this report would do? Justice Muralidhar says we cannot lose faith in the system. There are foreign citizens working in Israeli army. There are 6,000 French, 2,000 British and 700 Australians. All the three countries are signatories to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. According to the statute, these three countries have to prosecute their own soldiers if they indulge in human rights abuse. The Justice said the Commission also urged all the countries that are exporting arms to Israel to stop doing that. India exports small arms to Israel. The lion share comes from the US.
India has been standing by Israel and refusing to criticized it despite the devastation it caused in Iran. If India does not react and admonish Israel even after the 84-page report of the Commission headed by the Indian jurist Srinivasan Muralidhar, it would go down in history as one of the most unkind countries.
Prominent Journalist
Dr. K. Ramachandra Murthy is a versatile journalist with a distinguished career. Dr. Murthy began his extensive career with Andhra Prabha of The Indian Express group in Bengaluru. He was editor of Udayam, Vaartha and Andhra Jyothy. Dr. Murthy founded and edited HMTV news channel and The Hans India, an English newspaper. He was also editorial director of the Telugu newspaper, Saakshi. He was awarded Ph. D for his research work in rural reporting. Dr. Murthy’s five decades in journalism showcases his influential roles across both print and electronic media. He wrote the political biography of NTR published by Harper Collins.
