4 June - International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression
By Lorenzo Bersellini / GICJ
Introduction
Sidar, Luqman, Sadin, Reval, Ruslan, Jubran, Eve, Rakan and Yahya. Nine brothers and sisters - nine innocent children whose lives were violently ended overnight on 24 May 2025 by Israel’s inhumane attacks on Gaza.
Herman, Tymofii, Arina, Radyslav, Alina, Danylo, Mykyta, Kostiantyn, and Nikita. Nine innocent Ukrainian children - killed by a premeditated, targeted Russian airstrike on Kiev on 4 April 2025.
Thousands other names, thousands other children whose precious lives were lost in conflicts in Sudan, Myanmar, DRC, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, South Sudan, and other countries facing global emergencies.
To commemorate all those children who fall victim to aggression, the UN has established the 4th of June every year as the International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression. Appalled by the violations that Lebanese and Palestinian children endured at the hands of Israeli authorities during Israel’s operations in Lebanon in 1982, the UN General Assembly adopted resolution A/RES/ES-7/8 instituting this date as the recurrence to remember innocent children victims of aggression. Despite efforts from the UN to put an end to attacks against children, violations of children rights still largely persist in conflict, both in and out of Palestine, as the examples provided below illustrate.
Grave violations to children rights in Palestine
By the end of May 2025, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) estimated that more than 50,000 children had been killed or injured in Gaza since the beginning of the conflict on 7 October 2023 [1]. After the end of the ceasefire in March 2025, more than 1,300 children have been killed and more than 3,700 injured.
Deliberate strikes on schools, hospitals, and homes have indiscriminately taken the lives of an ever-increasing number of innocent children in the Gaza Strip. The attacks are so severe that UNICEF Spokesperson James Elder called the conflict in Gaza “a war on children.” [2] He went on to explain that in Gaza, children’s casualty rate is around 40%. This has made the OPT, in particular Gaza, the “deadliest place to be a child” in 2024. [3]
Many of these injured children are being classified by doctors on the ground as “WCNSF”: wounded child, no surviving family. This chilling and devastating definition encapsulates the tragedy that many surviving children must endure being left to face their physical and psychological trauma without any other family member alive. Estimates suggest that around 17,000 children are unaccompanied or separated from their parents. [4]
Attacks against children and their families were also ruthlessly conducted during evacuations through safe corridors and in designated safe zones in the strip, where more than 1.9 million people have been internally displaced (400,000 since the end of the ceasefire alone). The UN Security Council, on 23 January 2025, heard from one of the present humanitarian organisations the story of Gazi, a child who was forced to move to the al-Mawasi refugee camp. He drew about himself being at home, well-fed with his father. Instead, both Gazi and his father were killed when their tent was struck by a missile. [5]
In Palestine, there are innocent children victims of aggression beyond Gaza, in the West Bank. There, ever more children are being killed and injured there as a result of violent attacks by settlers and Israeli security forces. Children are being harassed in and on their way to schools and they are evicted from their homes with their families [6].
At the same time, innocent children victims of aggression are also the ones that suffer the physical and mental consequences that an inhumane war has brought upon them.
There are the eight babies who died of hypothermia, while other 74 children died due to the harsh winter conditions [7].
There are also the 50 children who died of hunger due to the blockade of food deliveries and humanitarian aid, plus the 71,000 children under five who could suffer from acute malnutrition over the next year [8].
There are also the children who died in hospitals due to lack of medications and treatment and there are all those children - rather, all children in Gaza - who will have to live with the permanent mental and emotional scars caused by the inhumanity they witness everyday.
Violation of children rights in the rest of the world
There are many other theaters of war in which conflict is inflicting an intolerable price to pay to innocent children, such as Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Ukraine. According to the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict’s 2025 report [9], a total of 11,649 children have been killed in 2023, particularly in the aforementioned countries. In the first half of 2024, instead, over 18,000 grave violations were registered by the UN.
UNICEF estimated that in 2024 more children than ever were either living in conflict-affected areas or were displaced as a consequence of war. According to the statistics, 473 million children were living in conflict zones and 47.2 million were displaced due to conflicts. [10]
Children all over the world are being deprived of their right to life, dignity, education, health, food, and play, which are fundamental pillars for a safe childhood.
The consideration of child victims extends to those who are conscripted or enlisted in an army, as well as all to those girls and boys victim of sexual and gender-based violence. On the latter, reports from Save the Children show how 1 in 6 children living in conflict zones are at risk of sexual violence by armed groups, a risk that is now ten times higher than in 1990.
UN Action
The United Nations has instituted 4 June as the dedicated International Day to raise awareness about the multifaceted threats that children face in conflict. It is also the day in which the organisation’s achievements and progress in the area should be underscored.
Special procedures and representatives as well as investigative mandate from the Human Rights Council - such as the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for children and armed conflict, the Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children and country specific investigative missions or special procedures - collect information on the violations of children’s rights, they raise awareness at the institutional and state level and call for urgent actions. UNICEF works in 190 countries for the protection of children rights, whereas the Committee on the Right of the Child scrutinises states’ compliance with the obligations included in the Convention on the Right of the Child. Fundamentally, UN agencies such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), UNICEF, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) provide life-saving humanitarian relief to populations, including children, in need during conflict. In particular, the role of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in providing food, education, shelter and health services to Palestinian children cannot be underestimated.
At the same time, UN achievements should not overshadow the failures of the organisation to prevent and stop the suffering of children trapped in conflict areas. Peacekeepers are not only often unable to protect civilians and children, but they are also themselves the perpetrators of violations to their rights. Since the 1990s, more than 2,000 formal allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse of children have been made against UN peacekeepers and personnel on the ground. Underpinned by a lack of accountability, these violations further endanger children in armed conflicts to an extent that has often been overlooked.
Moreover, the inability of the UN Security Council (UNSC) to adopt resolutions that effectively contribute to restoring international peace and security is shattering the hopes of millions of children across the world. As unlawful wars are dragged on under the eyes of the UNSC, more children perish due to the Council’s inaction, and so does the UN's credibility as the organisation responsible to maintain international peace and security.
Conclusion
Children are not just incidental casualties. They are the first victims targeted as a war tactic by armies and armed groups that utterly disregard international humanitarian law, human rights law, and the basic concepts of humanity. Sadly, in an era of widespread impunity and institutional paralysis, children are increasingly vulnerable to widespread violations.
Geneva International Centre for Justice (GICJ) denounces all violations to children in armed conflicts. In rejecting all kinds of physical, sexual, psychological, and emotional attacks on children, GICJ urges the international community to take decisive action to prevent and stop any violation presently occurring and to address its systematic roots to avoid their recurrence in the future.
In particular, we urge member states and the UN to end the plight of Palestinian children, who are being disproportionately affected by Israel’s genocidal campaign against them. The world cannot stand idle while seeing their suffering continue; we thus call for an immediate ceasefire to ensure the protection of surviving children and to stop their killing, holding those responsible for it accountable.
At the same time, GICJ urges all parties involved in hostilities across the world to respect children’s rights and to cooperate with UN agencies to ensure the timely supplies of humanitarian aid to children in need.
[1] More than a million children in the Gaza Strip deprived of lifesaving aid for over one month - UNICEF / ‘Unimaginable horrors’: more than 50,000 children reportedly killed or injured in the Gaza Strip
[2] https://www.unocha.org/news/gaza-children-under-attack
[3] Occupied Palestinian Territory | Save the Children International
[6] Occupied Palestinian Territory | Save the Children International
[7] Gaza: UN Child Rights Committee condemns mass starvation of children amid aid blockades | OHCHR
[8] Gaza: UN Child Rights Committee condemns mass starvation of children amid aid blockades | OHCHR
[9] A/HRC/58/18 General Assembly
[10] ‘Not the new normal’ – 2024 'one of the worst years in UNICEF’s history' for children in conflict
