Overview
- The UN’s 2025 Children and Armed Conflict report recorded 38,558 verified ‘grave violations’ worldwide, the highest tally since monitoring began, and said 24,174 children were affected.
- Killing and maiming were the single largest category with 14,224 cases verified across conflicts last year.
- The Palestinian territories and Israel accounted for 12,445 of the verified violations in 2025, including the confirmed deaths of 2,668 children in Gaza and 57 in the West Bank.
- The report attributes 9,465 violations to Israeli forces, 326 to Israeli settlers and 2,806 to Palestinian armed groups, and it keeps Hamas’ armed wing on the UN’s blacklist for killing, maiming and abductions of children.
- The UN highlighted sharp rises in child recruitment and in attacks on schools and hospitals, warned that listing settlers would carry reputational and action-plan consequences rather than automatic sanctions, and said such steps could increase diplomatic and humanitarian pressure if abuses repeat.