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A leading human rights researcher has delivered explosive testimony to a British parliamentary committee, alleging that the United Kingdom failed to prevent a documented genocide that killed an estimated 60,000 civilians in Sudan’s el-Fasher after bowing to behind-the-scenes political pressure from the United Arab Emirates.

Nathaniel Raymond, founding director of the Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) at the Yale School of Public Health, told the House of Commons International Development Committee on Tuesday that the UK – as the official penholder for Sudan affairs at the United Nations, tasked with coordinating the international community’s response to the crisis – was uniquely positioned to avert what he calls one of the worst mass casualty events of the 21st century. Instead, he says, more than two dozen private warnings and evidence-based recommendations were dismissed, sidelined or ignored to protect London’s strategic economic and diplomatic ties with Abu Dhabi.

The crisis in el-Fasher began unfolding long before the October 2025 massacre. In the summer of 2023, the UAE-backed Rapid Support Forces (RSF) carried out a genocide that killed tens of thousands of Masalit civilians in el-Geneina, another major Darfur city – a atrocity the U.S. government and multiple leading human rights organizations have officially classified as genocide. Within weeks, researchers and analysts confirmed that el-Fasher, home to long-standing displacement camps for survivors of the 2003–2005 Darfur genocide, was the RSF’s next primary target.

Raymond first briefed the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) on the looming threat in July 2023, where he called for urgent UN peacekeeping intervention to stop the impending violence. By April 2024, HRL monitoring confirmed the RSF had begun its full siege of el-Fasher, a city with a population roughly three-quarters the size of the Gaza Strip. HRL leadership concluded that engaging the British government, given its UN mandate, represented the best possible chance to prevent catastrophe.

In mid-May 2024, as the UK drafted UN Security Council Resolution 2736 – a text calling for an unconditional ceasefire in Sudan – Raymond met with FCDO officials in London to present newly compiled evidence: an analysis of public phone records showing regular travel between RSF-held territory in Sudan, UAE locations, Somalia’s Bosaso port, and Ethiopia’s Addis Ababa. Subsequent reporting has confirmed that Bosaso’s military base and Ethiopian transit routes serve as key logistics hubs for the UAE to supply the RSF with weapons, military equipment and mercenary fighters. The phone travel data traced directly to Abdel-Rahim Dagalo, brother and second-in-command of RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, widely known as Hemedti.

During those meetings, Raymond told MPs, FCDO officials admitted they were facing intense private diplomatic pressure from the UAE that limited London’s ability to act on the crisis. He said British officials asked his independent American research lab – not UK intelligence agencies like GCHQ or MI6 – to publicly release the sensitive phone data to counter the UAE’s covert support for the RSF. Raymond declined the request, noting that public release would expose the tracking system, allow the RSF and UAE to close the security loophole, and eliminate the lab’s ability to predict future attacks. The tracking mechanism was eventually exposed months later when Human Rights Watch published reporting on Colombian mercenaries being trained in the UAE for RSF service.

In follow-up meetings with NGO representatives, FCDO officials made clear that Resolution 2736 was the maximum action the UK was willing to take, and that the text would not include any consequences for foreign state backers of Sudan’s warring parties – including the UAE. Officials also told humanitarians they would only issue one public warning that el-Fasher was on the brink of collapse, for fear of being accused of “crying wolf” if an attack was delayed.

After Resolution 2736 was adopted on June 13, 2024, the RSF paused its attacks on el-Fasher for a brief period. Raymond told the committee that HRL obtained intelligence from a source with direct access to RSF internal operations: the UAE had ordered Hemedti to halt the assault so Abu Dhabi could assess whether the UN resolution would trigger any meaningful political consequences for its support of the RSF. HRL shared this intelligence with the FCDO and urged the UK to prepare punitive measures if the RSF resumed attacks. According to Raymond, the FCDO made explicitly clear that no unilateral or multilateral consequences would be imposed for violating the resolution. Once the UAE confirmed there would be no repercussions, the siege and attacks resumed.

Later that month, Raymond confirmed, the UAE blocked him from speaking about RSF bombing damage in an official UN chamber. In January 2025, he was contacted by staff for then-UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who was visiting Sudanese refugee camps in Chad. Lammy’s team only asked Raymond for a U.S. National Security Council phone number, but he used the call to warn them that the large Zamzam internally displaced persons camp outside el-Fasher – home to more than 500,000 people already facing famine conditions, most from ethnic groups targeted in the 2003 Darfur genocide – was being bombarded with advanced UAE-supplied weapons, and that the attack was a precursor to a full RSF seizure of the camp.

In April 2025, as Lammy hosted a high-profile multinational donor conference for Sudan in London, the RSF stormed and captured Zamzam. Raymond described graphic atrocities: humanitarian and healthcare workers were executed on camera after begging for mercy, women and girls were kidnapped as sexual slaves and systematically tortured, and large sections of the camp were burned to the ground. Despite hosting the donor conference as the massacre unfolded, the FCDO issued no public statement on the fall of Zamzam, and Raymond says HRL is aware of no official UK comment on the atrocity.

By September 2025, HRL satellite imagery analysis confirmed the RSF had built 31 kilometers of earthen berms around el-Fasher, encircling the city to create what Raymond calls a “kill box” to trap and slaughter the civilian population. That same month, a senior FCDO official privately expressed to Raymond that the Starmer government had no intention of taking meaningful action as the city neared collapse. One month later, the RSF launched its final assault and seized full control of el-Fasher. Verified eyewitness accounts, video footage, photos and satellite imagery confirm widespread massacres of unarmed civilians, with survivors reporting summary executions, systematic sexual violence and routine torture at the hands of RSF fighters. Hours before el-Fasher fell, ceasefire talks in Washington collapsed after the UAE refused to address the 18-month crippling siege of the city.

HRL’s analysis estimates that at least 60,000 civilians were killed in the final assault and its aftermath. Raymond told the committee that after the massacre, a senior FCDO Atrocity Prevention official contacted him via encrypted chat to question whether the 60,000 death toll was inflated, then followed up with a phone call. During that conversation, Raymond said, he concluded the death estimate represented a political problem for the FCDO, given its ties to the UAE. The official requested a formal briefing for FCDO and UN officials on the casualty data, but the FCDO never scheduled the briefing, and it never took place.

Raymond emphasized to MPs that the el-Fasher massacre was “arguably the most accurately predicted mass atrocity in human history.” The real-time intelligence provided by HRL and other independent researchers was detailed, timely, granular and actionable enough to allow the UK to develop robust policy interventions that could have prevented the slaughter entirely. He pointed to targeted sanctions against UAE officials responsible for arming the RSF as one minimal intervention that could have disrupted the covert weapons pipeline flowing to the paramilitary group.

The researcher warned that the same pattern of inaction is already repeating itself in el-Obeid, a city in southern Sudan’s Kordofan region that is currently under siege and attack by the RSF. He also called for grassroots accountability for the UAE’s role in the atrocities, urging a public consumer boycott of UAE-linked businesses – including stopping purchases at Dubai and Abu Dhabi airport duty free shops, and highlighting public pressure on Abu Dhabi-owned Manchester City football club as a potential catalyst for change.

On Tuesday, the fifth round of direct negotiations between Lebanon and Israel kicked off in the U.S. capital, marking a new chapter in efforts to end ongoing hostilities even as a parallel diplomatic track between the United States and Iran threatens to complicate and overshadow the bilateral process. This three-day round of talks follows four earlier negotiating cycles that failed to deliver a lasting ceasefire or close the deep ideological and territorial divides separating the two neighboring states.

As talks get underway, Lebanese negotiators are arriving in Washington with a clear set of core priorities: pushing for a binding timetable for a full Israeli withdrawal from occupied southern Lebanon, securing the safe return of hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Lebanese civilians, negotiating the release of Lebanese prisoners held by Israel, and laying the groundwork for large-scale post-conflict reconstruction. For its part, Israel has repeatedly linked any territorial withdrawal to the full disarmament of Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, and insists that Israeli forces maintain control over a wide security buffer zone inside southern Lebanon until Israeli officials are satisfied that the Lebanese army can fully prevent Hezbollah from reestablishing a military presence in the area.

Unlike the four prior rounds held earlier this year, this latest negotiating session unfolds against a drastically shifted regional diplomatic landscape. A recent memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran has folded the Lebanese-Israeli conflict into a broader regional ceasefire framework, and follow-up discussions held near Switzerland’s Lake Lucerne produced a blueprint for a new multilateral mechanism designed to de-escalate tensions between Israel and Hezbollah. This development means the bilateral Washington talks are no longer the sole diplomatic forum addressing the Lebanon conflict, creating new questions about who ultimately holds decision-making power over Lebanon’s negotiating path – a particularly sensitive issue for the Lebanese presidency, which has framed the direct bilateral talks as a critical step to restore state control over issues of war, peace and national sovereignty.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun has repeatedly stressed that no foreign power has the authority to negotiate on Lebanon’s behalf. “We welcome any assistance to end the war, but we are a sovereign country and no one negotiates on our behalf,” Aoun stated ahead of the fifth round of talks. Lebanese officials have described the decision to open direct negotiations with Israel as a historic step that allows the Lebanese state to reclaim full responsibility for the country’s foreign and security policy, in line with Article 52 of the Lebanese constitution, which grants the president authority to negotiate international agreements in coordination with the prime minister, with final approval required from the cabinet and, depending on the terms of any deal, parliament. Still, well-placed sources confirm that the launch of direct talks came in large part from intense U.S. diplomatic pressure on Beirut, and that talks have proceeded even as Israel has continued its airstrikes and ground operations across southern Lebanon.

After four rounds of talks since April failed to secure a durable end to fighting, the longest pause in Israeli airstrikes came not from an agreement between Lebanon and Israel, but after the U.S.-Iran memorandum was signed – a reality that has strengthened Hezbollah’s argument that Iran’s diplomatic track with Washington is far more effective at securing an Israeli ceasefire than the Lebanese government’s bilateral negotiations.

The fourth round of Washington talks, held June 2 and 3, concluded with a joint statement from the U.S., Lebanon and Israel that outlined a framework requiring a full halt to Hezbollah attacks and the withdrawal of Hezbollah operatives from the area south of the Litani River as preconditions for a ceasefire. The statement also announced plans to establish “pilot zones” where the Lebanese Armed Forces would exercise full exclusive control, with all non-state armed groups excluded from the areas. The framework also emphasized that the future of Lebanese-Israeli relations must be determined by the two national governments, and rejected any attempts by external actors to hold Lebanon’s future hostage.

This joint statement drew sharp criticism from Hezbollah, which argued it imposed one-sided obligations on the group while offering no binding Israeli commitment to withdraw from occupied Lebanese territory. Hezbollah officials have labeled the direct bilateral talks a grave mistake that grants Israel long-sought political gains without requiring it to end its occupation or halt military operations. Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who led Lebanon’s indirect negotiating channels with Israel in prior talks, has also argued that Beirut should rely on the existing ceasefire monitoring mechanism established after the 2024 hostilities agreement, and has publicly rejected limited pilot zones, calling instead for a full comprehensive ceasefire, full Israeli withdrawal, and parallel implementation of commitments by both sides.

A senior source close to the Lebanese delegation revealed that the pilot zone proposal nearly caused the fourth round of talks to collapse entirely. Initially, Israel rejected the proposal, prompting Lebanese negotiators to threaten to walk away from the session. U.S. officials stepped in to broker a compromise, persuading Israel to accept the principle of pilot zones, but the two sides remain deeply divided over where the zones will be located and what specific obligations will apply to each party.

Lebanese negotiators proposed the southern Lebanese city of Bint Jbeil as the first pilot zone, a city that falls within what Israel calls the “Yellow Line” – a self-declared military boundary Israel has marked inside Lebanese territory to demarcate areas under its operational control. By nominating Bint Jbeil, Beirut aimed to push back against the risk that Israel’s current controlled area would gradually become a permanent buffer zone. Under Lebanon’s proposal, Israel would withdraw from Bint Jbeil, the Lebanese army would deploy to the city, Hezbollah would dismantle its military infrastructure, and displaced residents would return to their homes. But Israel rejected Bint Jbeil as the initial test site. “The Israelis appeared as though they had been dragged into the negotiating room by the Americans. You could see it on their faces. They did not want to be there,” the source close to the negotiations noted.

Instead of accepting Lebanon’s proposal, Israel has demanded that it retain full control over the entire Yellow Line, while retaining the right to monitor Lebanese army operations targeting Hezbollah both south and north of the Litani River. Israel has stated that it will only consider further territorial withdrawals after it assesses the Lebanese army’s performance and confirms that the army has fully dismantled Hezbollah’s military positions. For Lebanon, this framework risks cementing Israel’s current positions as a semi-permanent security zone, and makes withdrawal conditional on an open-ended, unregulated Israeli assessment of the Lebanese army’s actions.

In this fifth round of talks, the Lebanese delegation plans to revisit the pilot zone proposal and push for a broader geographic scope, moving beyond the small individual villages and narrow sectors discussed in prior rounds. A presidential source close to the talks says a new broader framework covering entire districts has been proposed, which would include multiple towns and villages on both sides of the Litani River, rather than testing the arrangement in isolated localities. The source added that this approach has even been discussed by Berri, despite his public rejection of limited pilot zones. Under this broader framework, Israeli withdrawal, Lebanese army deployment, civilian return, and the removal of Hezbollah military infrastructure would be implemented across a much larger contiguous area. Even with this new proposal, core fundamental differences between the two sides remain unchanged: Lebanon demands that withdrawal begin the process, while Israel demands concrete proof of Hezbollah’s disarmament before it gives up control of occupied territory.

The biggest uncertainty hanging over the Washington talks, however, stems from the new parallel diplomatic mechanism emerging from U.S.-Iran talks in Switzerland. U.S. Vice President JD Vance confirmed that the Swiss talks produced a framework for a body designed to reduce tensions in Lebanon and prevent renewed escalation. Details of the proposed body, which has been called both a deconfliction cell and a tension-reduction committee, have not been released to the public. A source close to the Lebanese presidential palace told Middle East Eye that Lebanese officials have not yet received a full explanation of the body’s membership, authority, or relationship to the existing Washington negotiations.

Current indications suggest the mechanism will include Lebanon, Iran, and the U.S., with Pakistan and Qatar potentially joining as mediators. The working model appears to have the U.S. communicating directly with Israel, Iran communicating directly with Hezbollah, and the Lebanese state participating as a formal direct party. Under this arrangement, neither Israel nor Hezbollah would have formal representation, but both would have indirect access through their main international backers.

Israel has already raised concerns that the mechanism grants formal recognition to Iran’s role in Lebanese affairs, while potentially restricting Israel’s freedom of military action. For Lebanese officials, the key concern is that Iran could use the process to speak for Hezbollah and negotiate matters involving Lebanese territory independent of the internationally recognized Beirut government. Still, the Lebanese presidency has indicated it is willing to engage with the new mechanism as long as the U.S. leads the process and the Lebanese state retains formal representation.

According to the presidential source, U.S. recognition of the Pakistan-backed diplomatic initiative does not mean the Washington and Swiss tracks have to be mutually exclusive. The two processes could eventually converge: the direct bilateral talks would resolve core Lebanese-Israeli territorial and political disputes, while the Swiss mechanism would work to enforce calm between Israel and Hezbollah through guarantees from the U.S. and Iran. But no framework has yet been established to clarify where one process’s authority ends and the other’s begins. “The Washington and Swiss tracks do not have to remain separate,” the source said. “The question is how they will intersect. At this stage, that is still not clear.”

On the night of April 30, Israeli military forces raided the West Bank home of Musab Zaloum, a Palestinian father of two, as he and his family slept peacefully. Zaloum was separated from his wife Manar Karaja and their young children within minutes of the soldiers’ arrival, handcuffed and forced outside before he had any understanding of the operation’s target. It was only after he was placed in an armored military vehicle that a soldier informed him: 28-year-old Karaja, who was just two days prior confirmed to be pregnant with the couple’s third child, was under arrest.

Zaloum, still cuffed, was soon allowed to return to the house, where he found his 5-year-old son Ayman and 4-year-old daughter Layla awake and screaming in terror. Woken by the commotion after the soldiers left, the children immediately begged to know where their mother was. To calm them in that terrifying moment, Zaloum told them intruders had broken into the home, and that their mother would return by morning. That promise was broken, and he soon had to tell the children the truth: the Israeli army had taken their mother.

Karaja is one of three pregnant Palestinian women currently held in Israel’s Damon Prison, all of whom are being subjected to brutal, degrading conditions that put both their lives and the lives of their unborn children at severe risk, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club. These three women are part of a larger population of 93 Palestinian female detainees held in Israeli prisons, a group that has seen conditions deteriorate dramatically since October 2023. Since that date, no family members nor International Committee of the Red Cross representatives have been granted access to visit the female prisoners.

The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club released a statement accusing the Israeli Prison Service of ramping up punitive measures against female detainees in recent months. “Some pregnant prisoners have been subjected to harsh interrogations and detention conditions in cells that lack even the most basic sanitary standards,” the organization said. “This has exacerbated their physical and psychological suffering, leading to weight loss, emaciation and extreme exhaustion.” The group added that even pregnant detainees have been forced to undergo invasive, humiliating strip searches.

For Zaloum, life since Karaja’s arrest has been consumed by worry. The couple had only just learned of their pregnancy days before the raid, and had already begun picking out names for their coming child, a brief burst of joy cut short by the midnight raid. Today, he cares for their two young children alone, and his biggest fear is the lack of proper food and medical care for his wife in detention. He describes the prison conditions as “deplorable”, noting that even the small rations provided to regular prisoners are far from enough to meet the dietary needs of a pregnant woman.

Through lawyers that visit Karaja every few weeks (the only contact her family is allowed), Zaloum has learned that overcrowding at Damon Prison has forced Karaja to sleep directly on the cold concrete floor since her arrest, and she suffers from constant body pain as a result. Israel is holding Karaja on suspicion of incitement, a loosely defined charge that is frequently used to detain Palestinian women, often based on social media posts, and she remains in detention awaiting trial.

Karaja is far from alone in her suffering. Thirty-five-year-old Dana Joudeh, a five-month pregnant woman from Nablus, was arrested on April 18. Just months before her arrest, Joudeh underwent gastric bypass surgery, and she had only just learned of her pregnancy when Israeli forces raided her home and detained her. She was first held at the notorious Hasharon detention center, where reports routinely document humiliating treatment, invasive strip searches, and the denial of basic necessities including mattresses and adequate food.

Joudeh’s family told Middle East Eye that she has repeatedly suffered fainting spells and dehydration in detention, but prison officials have refused to provide the specialized medical care she needs given her pregnancy and recent surgery. “She told her lawyer that the women sleep on the floor in overcrowded, cold cells,” Joudeh’s mother said. “Some pregnant prisoners try to support others by sharing portions of bread and food, despite the already meagre rations and poor-quality meals.” The family lives in constant fear, with repeated requests for medical checkups for Joudeh ignored by prison authorities.

In Qalqilya, 37-year-old Amina al-Taweel, a mother of four who is four months pregnant, has been held on incitement charges since her March 18 arrest. Her husband Ali Shawahneh, who himself has spent 19 years total in Israeli prisons, says her arrest came as a devastating shock. “On the day of her arrest, I told the officer, ‘Take me instead of her,’” he recalled. “He replied, ‘This time, you’re not the one we’re after – it’s your wife.’ They handcuffed her and took her away while I stood there in shock, and the children cried.” Now caring for their four children alone, Shawahneh says he cannot meet the children’s emotional needs as they grieve for their mother. Al-Taweel, who experiences severe complications in early pregnancy that require ongoing care, has no access to that support in prison. “During my last detention, I lost more than 60 kilograms because of the poor quality and scarcity of food. How is a pregnant woman supposed to endure that?” Shawahneh asked.

Palestinian human rights defenders say Israel’s treatment of these pregnant detainees crosses every line of international law. Helmi al-Araj, director of the Hurryyat Centre for Defence of Liberties and Civil Rights, said that Israel’s policy of abuse toward prisoners has existed long before October 2023, but has become far more severe in recent months. “Prisoners face collective punishment, abuse, torture, starvation, isolation, and denial of family visits,” al-Araj told Middle East Eye. “All of this negatively impacts the psychological state of female prisoners who are mothers and pregnant women. This Israeli policy existed even before 7 October, but it has become a deeply entrenched policy based on grave violations of the rights of prisoners.”

Official Palestinian detainee advocacy groups confirm that the broader population of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody faces systemic abuse. According to the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, more than 9,300 Palestinians are currently held in Israeli prisons, including 93 women and more than 350 children. More than 765 women and girls have been arrested by Israeli forces since the start of the military campaign in Gaza in October 2023. Nearly half of all Palestinian detainees are held without charge or trial under indefinitely renewable administrative detention orders.

The United Nations’ leading independent investigative body mandated to probe violations in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has issued a landmark 88-page report concluding that Israeli security forces have systematically and deliberately targeted Palestinian children, committing acts of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes across the Gaza Strip, alongside additional war crimes in the occupied West Bank. The report covers the two-year period from October 7, 2023, to October 7, 2025, documenting that at least 20,179 Palestinian children were killed and another 44,143 wounded in Gaza during this window, with children accounting for 30% of all fatalities and 26% of all injuries recorded.

Srinivasan Muralidhar, the current chair of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory (including East Jerusalem), emphasized that overwhelming on-the-ground evidence confirms Palestinian children have been intentionally targeted and killed by Israeli forces. He added that even after the ceasefire agreement reached in October 2025, the killing and maiming of children has continued, with Israel consistently ignoring the terms of the truce and its legal obligation to protect Palestinian children under international humanitarian law.

Drawing directly from the provisions of the UN Genocide Convention, the inquiry concluded that the deliberate targeting of children constitutes clear evidence of Israel’s genocidal intent to destroy the Palestinian group, in whole or in part, within Gaza. This finding builds on the commission’s September 2024 conclusion that Israel was carrying out genocide in Gaza, a finding that former commission chair Navi Pillay described at the time as the most authoritative genocide determination the United Nations had issued to date on the situation in Gaza.

Unlike previous findings, the new report centers its analysis specifically on the impact of the conflict on children, examining direct violence, arbitrary detention, reproductive harm, and long-term psychological trauma. The inquiry documents a repeated, consistent pattern of children being struck by Israeli precision weapons, including fire from sniper units and attacks by reconnaissance quadcopter drones. Medical workers operating in Gaza documented hundreds of cases where children presented with single gunshot wounds concentrated in the head and upper torso.

The report details two horrific, representative cases to illustrate this pattern: in April 2024, a 10-day-old infant was shot in the head by an Israeli quadcopter while breastfeeding inside a displacement tent in Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp. Four months later, in August 2024, a four-year-old girl was killed by a quadcopter strike to the head while eating a meal with her family in Khan Younis. Seventeen frontline medical practitioners who treated casualties in Gaza confirmed to the commission that this pattern of targeted head and upper torso wounds from sniper and drone fire was uniform across child casualties. One physician told investigators that Israeli soldiers appeared to be engaging in “deliberately shooting teenage boys in a game of target practice.”

The commission has publicly identified specific Israeli military units it found responsible for these targeted killings, including the Kfir Brigade, the 162nd Division, the 98th Division, the 99th Division, and an elite drone unit known as the Refaim or Ghost Unit.

The report confirms that lethal violence against children has not ended with the October 2025 ceasefire, which Israel has repeatedly violated despite the agreement’s mandate to end all hostilities. A prominent example cited is the killing of two brothers, aged 9 and 10, who were shot dead by an Israeli drone near Bani Suheila in southern Gaza in late November while collecting firewood. Israeli forces attempted to frame the children as “suspects” crossing a restricted military boundary known as the yellow line, but the commission dismissed this claim as entirely baseless. Investigators confirmed the boys were more than 300 meters from the nearest Israeli troops, their identity as children collecting firewood was unambiguous, and the drone operator had an unobstructed, clear view of the pair before launching the strike.

Beyond direct targeted killings, the report details the total systemic destruction of Palestinian childhood across every aspect of daily life. As of October 2025, 459 of Gaza’s 564 school buildings had sustained direct military damage, leaving more than 668,000 school-age children completely cut off from formal education and forcing them to miss three full academic years. By January 2026, more than 335,000 children under the age of five face severe long-term developmental delays after the complete collapse of early childhood support services in the enclave.

Attacks on neonatal medical infrastructure have directly caused hundreds of preventable newborn deaths, the inquiry finds. Before October 2023, Gaza operated 178 incubators across eight full neonatal intensive care units; by November 2024, only 54 incubators remained functional. The report records that miscarriage rates in Gaza have risen by as much as 300% since the start of the conflict, and as of March 2026, 70% of all newborns in Gaza are classified as premature or underweight due to widespread maternal malnutrition and collapsed healthcare.

The inquiry also documented widespread abuse against Palestinian children detained by Israeli forces, finding that detained children are routinely subjected to torture, sexual violence, forced public nudity, coercive stress positioning, and deliberate denial of food, water, and emergency medical care. One case highlighted is that of a 17-year-old boy from Ramallah who died in Israel’s Megiddo Prison in March 2025 from severe, prolonged malnutrition; Israeli authorities withheld his body from his family for months after his death. The commission classified his death as a deliberate war crime of willful killing.

Muralidhar emphasized that the harm inflicted on Palestinian children will outlast active hostilities: “Even if the bombs and guns fall silent in Gaza and West Bank, Palestinian children will not simply recover overnight. The destruction of their health, education and development is irreversible.”

The commission has issued a series of binding calls for action: it demands Israel immediately halt all military operations in Gaza and the West Bank, release all detained Palestinian children, return the bodies of deceased children withheld from families, and end its years-long blockade of Gaza. The inquiry also urges all UN member states to immediately cease all arms transfers to Israel and impose targeted sanctions on Israeli officials responsible for the documented violations, and calls on the International Criminal Court to prioritize the investigation of crimes against children in its ongoing inquiry into Palestinian violations.

Notably, Israel did not respond to 13 separate formal requests for information or access from the commission to conduct its investigation.

For 38-year-old Palestinian academic Mahmoud al-Najjar, the Italian scholarship he had fought so hard to win was supposed to be a second chance at life. After losing his entire immediate family — his father, older brother, wife and all four of his children — in an Israeli bombardment of his Jabalia home in October 2024, al-Najjar had buried his grief to finish a master’s degree in international economics and publish research. Securing a place at Rome Tor Vergata University, with all the required applications, document certifications and interviews behind him, and official Israeli travel clearance already in hand, he saw the opportunity as the first step to rebuild after unspeakable loss.

That promise of a new beginning was shattered in early June at the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) border crossing, where Israeli forces detained al-Najjar, interrogated him, and cut off all contact with the outside world. His traveling companions, part of a group trip coordinated by the Italian embassy, were eventually allowed to proceed, and later shared the news of his arrest with his family. For al-Najjar’s loved ones, the shock of the news was compounded by the unorthodox way they learned of his disappearance: through social media, with no official notification from Israeli authorities.

“After we said goodbye to Mahmoud and felt happiness that he was starting a new journey, we were shocked to read the news of his arrest across social media platforms,” Mahmoud’s 28-year-old youngest brother Attia al-Najjar told Middle East Eye. “It was very harsh to find out about his arrest and disappearance while browsing social media, without receiving any official notification.”

After days of outreach, Attia finally connected with the family of a fellow traveler who witnessed the detention. The witness, who was also interrogated before being released, confirmed he saw Israeli forces take Mahmoud into custody. The al-Najjar family has since been left in agonizing uncertainty: Israeli authorities have disclosed no information about Mahmoud’s whereabouts, health, or legal status. A single confirmation came from the Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights, which verified Mahmoud was being held in Ashkelon Prison with a ban on visitor access through June 15. But after that date passed, no human rights organization has been granted access to check on his condition.

The family’s anxiety has been amplified by existing trauma: Attia’s mother has suffered severe health complications from the ongoing stress, compounded by the 2024 bombardment that killed multiple family members, and the fact that two more of Attia’s brothers are already being held in Israeli prisons following an arrest during a military operation in the family’s displacement camp during the war. Attempts by Middle East Eye to contact the witness family were unsuccessful, as they declined interview requests out of fear for their safety and their son’s future abroad.

Mahmoud’s detention is far from an isolated incident, according to human rights advocates and testimonies collected from Gaza travelers. Since the partial reopening of the Rafah and Karem Abu Salem crossings under the October 2025 Gaza ceasefire agreement, hundreds of students have attempted to travel abroad to resume their studies or take up academic opportunities, but widespread accounts of arbitrary detention, prolonged interrogation, physical abuse and humiliation have gone largely unreported, silenced by fear of retaliation.

Mohammed Ahmed, a Gaza student who spoke to MEE under a pseudonym after successfully crossing to Europe to resume his studies, said that most students who have faced abuse refuse to speak out even anonymously. Ahmed himself had faced threats over his work as a journalist during the war, but passed security screening and received his travel permit, and ultimately crossed without incident. That luck did not extend to a colleague with a similar name who traveled shortly after him for the same scholarship program.

“I was shocked when my colleague told me that he was interrogated by the Israeli army and questioned about journalistic work that I had done while I was in Gaza,” Ahmed said. “Despite telling them that he does not work as a journalist and has a different specialism, they stripped him of his clothes, beat him, abused him and humiliated him, simply because of the similarity of our names, before allowing him to leave.”

Ahmed added, “Many students have gone through this humiliating experience, but fear for their lives and their families drives them to silence.”

Lina al-Tawil, director of the Palestinian Center for the Defence of Prisoners, told MEE her organization has collected dozens of similar reports from travelers leaving Gaza — including students, medical patients, and their companions — documenting hours of arbitrary detention, intrusive interrogation, and in some cases, complete denial of exit permission, even for travelers who had already received official clearance.

“We received direct testimonies from travelers or their families about being subjected to detention and security interrogations, which included questions about places of residence, relatives, movements inside the Strip, affiliations, and details with no direct relevance to travel or treatment,” al-Tawil said. While the organization cannot release a precise number of affected people due to limited access during ongoing conflict, al-Tawil confirmed that “the cases are recurrent and not isolated.”

Testimonies collected by the center align with longstanding human rights warnings that Israeli authorities are using border crossing approvals as a pretext to detain and abuse Palestinians. Common abuses documented include handcuffing, blindfolding, and public humiliation, with intrusive questions about family members’ whereabouts, political affiliations, and connections that have no connection to travel eligibility.

Abuse is not limited to Palestinians leaving Gaza: travelers returning to the Strip face identical mistreatment at Israeli checkpoints. Abdel Rahim Abu Toaima, a 39-year-old Gaza resident who traveled to Egypt in 2025 for his son’s open-heart surgery, spoke to MEE about his ordeal after being forced to undergo emergency knee surgery for a ruptured tendon before returning home.

When Abu Toaima’s bus arrived at the Rafah checkpoint, he was called in for interrogation. After he repeatedly denied knowing the individuals Israeli soldiers asked about, he was beaten and humiliated. Despite informing soldiers of his recent knee surgery, they forced him to stand for two hours in extreme heat without a seat, stripped him naked, forced him to remove his surgical bandage, spat on him, and called him degrading slurs. When he asked for water, his request was denied.

“After slapping and punching me, the army forced me to strip off all my clothes without respecting my privacy, especially in the presence of female soldiers,” Abu Toaima said. “They also forced me to unwrap the bandage from my knee, even though I could not bend my back. They spat in my face, called me the vilest names, and forced me to stand for two hours in intense heat. Whenever I told them I was tired and I could not stand, they insulted me more.”

After hours of abuse, soldiers finally allowed Abu Toaima to enter Gaza, but confiscated his phone and other electronics. When he opened his suitcase back at his displacement tent in western Khan Younis, he discovered his and his son’s medication and most of their clothing had been stolen. Left without a phone in a Gaza market where replacement devices cost exorbitant sums out of reach for most residents, Abu Toaima now suffers from persistent swelling and bruising to his knee that requires ongoing treatment at Nasser Medical Hospital.

“I left Gaza with my injured son, and I returned with a knee injury that has not yet healed, and a harsh, unexpected interrogation experience from whose pain I will never recover,” he said.

According to Gaza’s government media office, of the 19,600 people who applied to exit Gaza through Rafah after its partial reopening, only around 7,000 — most of them critically ill patients — have been allowed to travel through after security screening. No official data exists for the number of people exiting through Karem Abu Salem, and only around 1,500 people have been allowed to re-enter Gaza through Rafah amid strict movement restrictions. For the al-Najjar family, outreach to the Red Cross and prisoner rights organization Addameer has yielded no new information about Mahmoud’s fate, leaving them trapped in limbo after every other loss they have endured.

“We never expected this to happen, especially since he had obtained travel clearance from the Israeli side,” Attia al-Najjar said.

In the heart of Gaza City, a 17-year-old Palestinian teenager with a single, unshakable dream – to complete her secondary education and secure a future through learning – would never reach the classroom that awaited her. Just days before her final exam preparatory classes were set to kick off, Raghad Ashour had already turned down a marriage proposal, choosing books over a walk down the aisle in a conflict zone where normal childhoods have long been erased by violence.

On a quiet Monday morning, Raghad stepped out of her family’s makeshift tent in a central Gaza displacement camp and set off toward a private learning center just a short walk away. She never crossed the center’s threshold. Mere meters from her destination, an Israeli drone strike in the Rimal neighborhood took her life instantly. The double-tap attack left at least five additional people wounded, their fates added to a growing toll of civilian casualties in the renewed hostilities.

Raghad’s story is far from an isolated tragedy in Gaza’s collapsing education system. For three consecutive years, more than 658,000 school-aged children across the enclave have been locked out of in-person learning. Israeli attacks have damaged or destroyed more than 97% of Gaza’s school infrastructure, and the few buildings left standing have been repurposed as emergency shelters for the tens of thousands of families displaced by bombing campaigns that began in October 2023.

To address the ongoing crisis, the Palestinian Ministry of Education rolled out limited remote learning options, prioritizing senior secondary students gearing up for critical exams. Lessons, study guides, and academic support are distributed via digital platforms, messaging apps, and pre-recorded or live online sessions where connectivity allows. But for the vast majority of Gaza’s student population, accessing these resources remains an insurmountable challenge. Widespread destruction of electricity and telecommunications networks has left most displacement camps and residential areas with little to no power or stable internet access.

To overcome these barriers, many desperate students travel to public spaces like cafes powered by solar panels or scarce fuel generators to download study materials, charge their devices, and sit for online exams. Others, like Raghad, turn to small private learning centers that offer in-person supplementary support to bridge gaps left by interrupted remote learning.

Speaking to Middle East Eye as he received mourners at Raghad’s funeral, her great-uncle Jamil Ashour recalled the teenager’s relentless determination to pursue her education against all odds. “Despite everything she had been through, she was determined to attend her classes,” he said. “She found a centre near the camp and went there every morning. She studied hard and would arrive early to secure a desk and make sure everything was ready before lessons began. But she never made it to the centre.”

Raghad faced constant setbacks: frequent blackouts that left her unable to charge her phone back at the tent, broken devices, and the constant uncertainty of life under bombardment. But nothing could sway her from her goal. Orphaned as a toddler when her father was killed in an Israeli attack when she was just three years old, Raghad saw education as her only path to stability and independence. “She grew up a single orphan and came to realise that nothing could support her like an education that would secure her a good job,” Jamil Ashour explained.

As the only daughter in a family of five children, Raghad was the heart of her displaced family’s tent. Her mother, who raised Raghad and her four brothers alone after her husband’s death, called the teenager not just a daughter, but a friend and companion through the darkest days of displacement and grief. “Just yesterday, I visited them in their tent and drank tea she had made with her own hands,” Ashour recalled. “She told me stories, and we laughed together. She was the flower of the house. Her brothers adored her.”

When a marriage proposal came for Raghad just days before her death, her mother was overjoyed – after decades of hardship, she had never imagined she would live to see her daughter reach marriageable age. But Raghad was unwavering in her refusal. She called her great-uncle to mediate, insisting she would first finish secondary school and go on to university. “But Raghad completely refused the idea. She didn’t want to get married, so she called me to come over and convince her mother. She wanted to finish her education and go to university,” Ashour said.

The shock of Raghad’s death was too much for her mother to bear; she fainted immediately after news of the strike reached the camp and was admitted to hospital, where she remained as of Tuesday. “Her heart simply couldn’t bear it; she fainted despite everyone trying to comfort her,” Ashour added.

Raghad is one of more than 1,011 Palestinians killed in Israeli military operations in Gaza since a ceasefire agreement ended a previous round of hostilities in October 2025. More than 3,000 additional people have been wounded in the renewed violence, a toll that continues to climb daily. Like many civilian casualties, Raghad was not a target of the strike – Jamil Ashour points to the common Israeli justification that strikes are aimed at specific militants, a claim that rings hollow for the families of innocent children caught in the crossfire.

“This is just a child. What does she have to do with all of this?” Ashour asked. “She insisted on continuing her education, despite being deprived of her father, her home, and any chance to live a normal childhood.”

Originally from Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, Raghad and her family had been displaced multiple times after the 7 October 2023 outbreak of hostilities, their home reduced to rubble by an Israeli airstrike before they settled in the central Gaza camp. For the family, what little consolation exists comes from the knowledge that Raghad died chasing the future she fought so hard to build. “Our only consolation is that she was killed on her way to pursuing her dream,” Ashour said.

Official data from the Palestinian Ministry of Education underscores the scale of the catastrophe facing Gaza’s student population. Since October 2023, at least 19,100 Palestinian K-12 students and 1,379 university students have been killed in Israeli attacks, with another 28,419 K-12 students and 3,017 university students wounded. For the surviving students, the dream of education remains out of reach for most, trapped between collapsing infrastructure and ongoing violence that shows no sign of abating.