JERUSALEM (AP) — A team of independent experts commissioned by the United Nations accused Israel of deliberately shooting children in Gaza and repeated its accusation that Israel has committed genocide in the territory.
Israel vociferously denies claims that it committed genocide during its 2 1/2 year war in Gaza.
The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, an investigative body operating under the U.N. Human Rights Council, said in its report Tuesday that roughly 30% of the Palestinians killed from October 2023 to October 2025 — more than 20,000 in total — were children. More children are believed to be missing or buried in unmarked graves.
Israel has denied deliberately targeting civilians and pushed back on accusations, including from rights groups, that it committed genocide in Gaza. Israel’s Foreign Ministry called the report a “libelous sham” and said the claims included hadn’t been verified. It also criticized the commission as “a fundamentally flawed mechanism whose very purpose is to single out and vilify Israel rather than seek the truth.”
The report also said the toll the conflict had taken on children in Gaza amounted to war crimes and genocide, building on accusations it first made against Israel in September.
“Even after the October 2025 ceasefire, children continue to be killed and seriously injured, with continued disregard by Israel for the ceasefire and for the protection owed to Palestinian children under international law," Srinivasan Muralidhar, the commission’s chair, said.
The report identified specific divisions within the Israeli army operating in areas where children as young as infants were killed, as well as the kind of munitions used. It also focused, in part, on children the commission determined were killed by quadcopter drones and sniper fire, often via a single gunshot.
Doctors interviewed by the commission said autopsies in those incidents “indicate a high degree of precision in the use of force, suggesting that the shot was carefully aimed rather than incidental or the result of indiscriminate fire.”
The report also noted cases in which children have continued to be killed after a ceasefire was reached in October 2025, including some who were said to be collecting firewood in areas approaching the yellow line that delineates areas under Israeli military control.
"By maintaining that the children killed were ‘suspects,’ the Israeli security forces have deflected responsibility to Palestinian children, portraying them as ‘terrorists’ rather than casualties,” it says.
Israel has criticized the broader United Nations and strenuously denied the commission’s past allegations — including of genocide — and says it takes precautions to limit civilian casualties and harm to children. The Israel-Hamas war started with the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage. Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, including those killed since the ceasefire, Gaza’s Health Ministry said.
The ministry, part of the Hamas-led government, is staffed by medical professionals and maintains detailed records that are generally considered reliable by United Nations agencies and independent experts. It does not distinguish between civilians and militants but says women and children make up around half of all fatalities.
FILE - Palestinian children fill plastic bottles with water at a tent camp in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana, file)
FILE - Displaced Palestinian children play on a swing at a tent camp as they mark the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr in Gaza City, Friday, March 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana, file)
President Donald Trump is headed to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to meet with Republican senators who have grown increasingly frustrated with his efforts to divert their agenda. He has pressured senators to focus on his proof-of-citizenship voting bill, blocked them from confirming one of his own nominees and forced them to defend his Iran war even as they question the strategy and endgame.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte will check in face-to-face with Trump on Wednesday, visiting the volatile U.S. leader two weeks before the annual summit of the military alliance at a time when the Pentagon is reviewing the size of the U.S. military footprint in Europe.
The saga over the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool took a turn as Trump said Tuesday that six people have been arrested over recent damage. The president’s troubled $14-million-plus rehabilitation project has become a visceral flashpoint over law enforcement, aesthetics and environmental concerns ahead of the country’s 250th anniversary celebrations.
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After two of Trump ’s picks for governor lost Republican primaries this month, he ensured it wouldn’t happen again. The president endorsed both GOP candidates in a South Carolina runoff, and one of them inevitably won.
Meanwhile New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani proved his endorsement power after boosting three progressives over establishment-backed candidates in Tuesday’s Democratic primaries. All three won, all but ensuring that two self-described democratic socialists will represent their deep blue districts in Congress. The mayor said it was a question of electing “better Democrats” who would “put working people back at the heart of politics.”
The losers in New York’s House primaries included New York Assemblyman Alex Bores, a former Palantir employee who pushed sweeping state-level AI regulation; Jack Schlossberg, the grandson of former President John F. Kennedy; and former Republican lawyer George Conway.
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The President sees America’s 250th anniversary as a chance to get the country excited again — about Donald Trump.
He’s hosting a rally Wednesday on the National Mall, promising a stealth bomber flyover, military bands, singer Lee Greenwood of “God Bless the USA” fame and a speech by who else but Trump.
The president is trying to convince American voters that he’s put the unpopular Iran war in the rearview mirror, with oil prices easing as the Strait of Hormuz reopens amid negotiations with Tehran. The rally kicks off weeks of celebrations about America and its 1776 founding.
After musicians including Young MC and the Commodores canceled, Trump said he’s stepping into the void as “the Number One Attraction anywhere in the World, the man who gets much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime.”
He said Wednesday’s event would be “the biggest rally we’ve ever had.”
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Trump said on social media that gasoline prices are not matching the decline in oil prices, so he has told the Justice Department “to immediately start looking into this.”
Crude oil prices have eased with the interim deal with Iran, which has enabled more oil tankers to start passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Prices at the pump are averaging $3.93 a gallon, according to AAA. Gasoline costs have fallen over the past month, just not as much as Trump would like.
“In other words, customers are being ‘gouged,’” Trump posted. “I have instructed the DOJ to immediately start looking into this. Gasoline prices better start going down a lot faster than what I’m seeing!
A federal appeals court on Tuesday allowed the Trump administration to resume carrying out speedy deportations of undocumented migrants throughout the United States, not just near the border.
A divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit threw out a lower court decision that temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s expanded use of expedited removal. The ruling was a big victory for the Republican administration, which views the expansion of so-called expedited removal as a key tool for carrying out its mass deportation policy.
Expedited removal — quick deportation without a chance to appear before a judge — has previously been applied to migrants arriving by sea or caught at or near the border shortly after crossing.
In January, Trump expanded its use to undocumented migrants all over the United States. Immigration agents began whisking migrants away from courthouses where they had gone for immigration proceedings and then removing them from the country within days.
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California intends to sue the Trump administration over its deal to end an offshore wind project proposed off the state’s central coast.
State officials said they are combating the administration’s attacks on their offshore wind industry by sending a notice of their intention to sue to the Department of the Interior on Tuesday. Tuesday’s action is focused on the administration buying back the lease for Golden State Wind, a floating offshore wind project off California’s central coast.
California has made a major commitment to offshore wind because of its potential to generate vast amounts of clean electricity from strong, consistent winds off its coast. Its strategy calls for the state to develop 25 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2045, enough to power roughly 25 million homes and provide about 13% of the state’s electricity supply.
These energy and climate goals are now in jeopardy, and that’s why California will fight vigorously, said California Energy Commission Chair David Hochschild.
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The saga over the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool took a turn as Trump cited six arrests over recent damage. The president’s troubled $14-million-plus rehabilitation project has become a visceral flashpoint over law enforcement, aesthetics and environmental concerns.
In a social media post, Trump claimed without supporting evidence that vandals had cause a “350-foot gash” in the paint as the administration faces a self-imposed deadline to fix the botched renovation before the nation’s 250th anniversary celebration next week. He repeated that the federal government would release images to substantiate his claim.
Trump pledged to beautify the century-old Reflecting Pool ahead of the anniversary, sealing the bottom in a color he dubbed “American flag blue.” But since that effort, its water has been plagued with algae and pieces of the new coating appeared to be peeling off.
Now the Center for Biological Diversity is calling on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to investigate whether the use of pool chemicals to kill the algae bloom violated the Migratory Bird Treaty Act after a Mallard duckling carcass was photographed floating in the murky water and two other ducks were found dead nearby.
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NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte will check in face-to-face with Trump on Wednesday, visiting the volatile U.S. leader two weeks before the annual summit of the military alliance at a time when the Pentagon is reviewing the size of the U.S. military footprint in Europe.
Trump has long been critical of NATO, arguing the U.S. carries more than its fair share of military spending. But his grievances have been louder since the Iran war as he fumed over some member countries ignoring his call to help him restart oil trade through the shuttered Strait of Hormuz.
Trump has renewed his threats to leave the 77-year-old military alliance, raising the stakes ahead of the NATO leaders’ summit in Turkey next month. But Rutte, who has become known as a Trump whisperer for his ability to charm the president, is expected to use Wednesday’s White House meeting to try to appease him.
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The president is headed to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to meet with Republican senators who have grown increasingly frustrated with his efforts to divert their agenda.
Trump, who will attend a closed-door Senate GOP luncheon for the first time in more than a year, has pressured senators for months to focus on his proof-of-citizenship voting bill even though it doesn’t have the votes to pass. At the same time, he has blocked them from confirming one of his own nominees, asked them to fund parts of his White House ballroom project despite opposition and forced them to defend his Iran war even as they question the strategy and endgame.
Trump has also helped whittle down his own support in the Senate after endorsing primary challengers to two GOP incumbents who were previously reliable votes for his agenda — Texas Sen. John Cornyn and Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy. Both have become more critical since losing their primaries.
Still, senators said ahead of the meeting that they hope to focus on unity, not disagreements.
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NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte speaks after a meeting of NATO defense ministers at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Thursday, June 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)
President Donald Trump speaks at a Mack Trucks facility, Tuesday, June 23, 2026, in Macungie, Pa. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Oklahoma City Police Department officers, deputized to assist with local law enforcement for events around the 250th anniversary of the U.S., patrol near the area where sections of blue coating have peeled up in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, Saturday, June 20, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
A Ferris wheel is seen on the National Mall for the 250 Anniversary celebration, Tuesday, June 23, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
