GUEST BLOG: Ian Powell – Destroying the essence of Palestinian

Foreign Minister Winston Peters has been reported to be considering the Government’s response to an horrific United Nations special investigation into Israel’s approach to Palestinian children in Gaza and its occupied territories on the West Bank of the River Jordan. More on this further below.

Released on 18 June the report concluded that Israel was deliberately targeting Palestinian children: Essence of childhood being destroyed.

Palestinian children being deliberately targeted by Israeli military (Owen Jones, BattleLines)

Genocidal context

This destruction of childhood has to be seen in the context of genocidal ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in what used to be known before 1948 as Palestine.

It is now simply ethically impossible not to describe what has happened in Gaza since the Hamas led attack just across the border with Israel on 7 October 2023 as genocide.

Lost Palestinian land through ethnic cleansing, 1948-2005

That is, genocide  has become the means of achieving Israel’s longstanding objective of ethnic cleansing Palestinians from their homeland that existed prior to the Zionist state’s formation in 1948.

As of 2 July Palestinians in Gaza had been enduring a genocide for a staggering 1,000 days in full view of the world and without any international institution being able to stop it.

Genocide survivors are continuing to be subjected to Israeli barbarism including almost nonstop barrage of bombs, bullets, engineered famine, hot summers, rainy winters, and sustained deprivation in tattered tents.

Donald Trump’s ceasefire is the kind of ceasefire you have when you are having continued genocide instead of a ceasefire (BBC)

Donald Trump’s ‘ceasefire’ that isn’t a ceasefire has ensured no end to date to Palestinian suffering. Genocide continues; the only change is that the death rate has declined.

Further, the fake ceasefire has enabled Israel to extend the proportion of Palestinian land in Gaza that it militarily controls.

Counting Palestinian deaths in Gaza

The official number of Palestinian deaths in Gaza since 7 October 2023 is over 73,000 (along with around 1,100 deaths in the occupied West Bank; one in five are children).

But these Gaza deaths are only the bodies that have reached hospitals. Many bodies lie under rubble. But there is more. I discussed this in a 29 August 2025 Political Bytes post: How to justify 400,000 Palestinian deaths in Gaza.

I reported that based on the Israel Defence Force’s (IDF) own internal estimates, Professor Yaakov Garb from Israel’s Ben-Gurion University had concluded that over 370,000 people (mainly civilians) may have been killed.

The Lancet has done ‘God’s work’ journalism exposing genocide of Palestinians

Further, this number was echoed by estimates from The Lancet Group and independent researchers, suggesting a death toll that could already exceed 400,000. Among them, more than 150,000 were likely to be children.

[Contrast this with official Gaza health ministry data reporting 21,500 children killed, including over 1,000 under the age of one year].

Subsequently, on 22 May, The Lancet (Global Health) published the results of its more recent analysis: Official data undercounts Palestinian mortality by 35%.

Israel’s use of genocide against Palestinians confirmed in undercounted mortality data

It concluded that official Gaza health ministry data undercounted violent deaths by approximately 35% noting that this closely aligned with other credible published research using different methodology  reporting an undercount of approximately 40%.

The Lancet added that its findings contradicted claims that the Gaza health ministry had inflated the death toll from the war in the Gaza Strip.

Instead, if anything, the ministry appeared to have provided conservative, reliable figures while working under extraordinary constraints.

United Nations report on Israel’s deliberate targeting of children

The official title of the United Nations report referred to in my opening paragraph is the ‘Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel’ (the Commission).

Ethnic cleansing of Palestinians began in 1948 with the Nakbar

The Commission examined violations and crimes by Israel against and affecting Palestinian children since October 2023. This included serious physical and psychological harm in addition to mortality.

Over 20,000 child deaths were identified along with another over 44,000 injured. Much of this was due to the IDF, particularly in Gaza. But there was also reported increased violent activity by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.

However, these deaths and injuries were not collateral damage. Instead they were due to a deliberate strategy of targeting and killing Palestinian children.

The Commission identified the means for achieving this strategy as including both torture and inhumane and degrading treatment, particularly during mass arrests and in detention. Critical infrastructure for children including healthcare was also targeted.

The situation was summed up as:

…preventable mortality of children, exacerbating morbidity, and serious mental trauma from the relentless and widespread by Israel over two years.

International human rights lawyer Chris Sidoti

On 2 July Radio New Zealand’s Guyon Espinar interviewed Australian human rights expert Chris Sidoti on Midday Report: Sidoti on Commission’s inquiry.

Penetrating analysis by Owen Jones

For a values and evidence based assessment of the Commission’s findings, reinforced by appropriate passion, it is hard to go past English journalist Owen Jones in his BattleLines online publication (2 July): Israel deliberately killing Palestinian children.

Convincingly arguing that the evidence is absolutely overwhelming and incontrovertible that Israel is deliberately killing Palestinian children, Jones goes into some depth discussing the Commission’s detailed report.

He doesn’t pull his punches; in the face of such an atrocity why should he! Jones also draws upon others affected by the focus on children such as doctors and journalists in Palestinian territory.

Owen Jones concludes:

There is no doubt. Israel is deliberately killing Palestinian children on a mass scale – and the atrocity deniers who claim otherwise must be disgraced.

Government response

I began this post with a reference to Foreign Minister Winston Peters reported as considering whether to respond to the Commission’s devastating report.

Ironically, as discussed above, his department already had in the United Nations; something which appears to have been unreported in New Zealand (at the very least underreported).

Good Government statement to United Nations human rights council

The only official statement on behalf of the New Zealand government to the Commission’s devasting report was on 15 June (three days before its public release) given to the United Nations’ Human Rights Council. It stated in full:

Thank you, Mr President,

As the world has focused on the Iran conflict, the situation across the occupied Palestinian territories has also deteriorated. 

We are deeply concerned by the Commission’s reports of serious abuses of human rights by non-state actors. This includes a stark increase in killings and injuries by extremist Israeli settlers. 

These acts of violence in the West Bank occur with impunity. We urge Israel to do all that it can to stop these actions and ensure those responsible are held accountable. 

We condemn unequivocably the ongoing violence inflicted by Palestinian armed militants associated with Hamas, including in medical facilities, public executions and beatings.

The violence stands alongside the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza. The level of desperation is striking. 46% of children under two experience severe food poverty; in April alone 3,500 children were admitted to hospital suffering malnutrition. 

We urge all parties to continue to give effect to UNSC resolution 2803. We urge Israel to allow humanitarian assistance into and throughout Gaza, in line with its obligations under international law.

Mr President, what more can the international community do to alleviate the suffering of the people of Gaza, and bring an end to the violence? 

Foreign Minister Winston Peters needs to speak out against destruction of Palestinians childhood

There is much to commend in this statement even given a brief distracting and disproportionate attack on Palestinian resistance to Israeli military occupation.

It is nevertheless a significant improvement on previous government statements on Israel’s genocidal occupation of Gaza which range from inadequate to appalling.

But there are three important qualifications that need to be made about the official statement.

New Zealand calling for Israeli withdrawal from Gaza long overdue

First, it fails to call for Israel’s immediate cessation of its war against Palestinians including its withdrawal from occupied Gaza. This action would end the genocide.

Second, the statement is in the name of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, not the Prime Minister or Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Third, there has been deafening silence since that statement and the subsequent release of the Commission’s report.

Given the gravity and inhumanity of what the report reveals, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters should be proactively and publicly promoting the message of the above-mentioned statement to the United Nations.

Surely this should have greater priority than seeking to deny voting rights to permanent residents and opposing trans rights! Just saying!