A year after the announcement of a ceasefire in Gaza, Palestinians are still living under constant Israeli fire in attacks both near and far from the so-called “yellow line” that raise serious concerns about continued crimes under international law, including war crimes.
“This is not life; this is endless torment with no end in sight. Human life has no value anymore,” said one father of three in Gaza. “There is not a single thing I can think of to ensure my children will survive from one minute to the next. We are constantly at the mercy of a random bullet, shelling, or an aerial attack. Sometimes it feels like they are playing games with our lives.”
Throughout the past year, Israeli attacks never ceased, killing and injuring Palestinians and causing recurrent displacement across Gaza. Over 1,400 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health since the announcement of a ceasefire on 10 October 2025. UN Human Rights – OPT has so far verified1,076 conflict-related deaths between the ceasefire announcement and the end of July 2026, including 268 children, 126 women, and 682 men — women and children making up 37 per cent of all verified fatalities.
Since 7 October 2023, Israeli forces have killed over 20,000 children in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Since the announcement of a ceasefire in October 2025, UN Human Rights – OPT has verified the killing of 64 children in reported Israeli attacks that killed only children and no adults. This is in addition to 30 women and 10 more children killed in reported Israeli attacks in which all those killed were women or women and children with no men fatalities. The total proportion of civilian fatalities is likely much higher, as this number does not take into account all the civilian men killed in Gaza.
This pattern raises serious concerns that Israel is directing attacks against civilians not directly participating in hostilities — a war crime.
“Violence of this magnitude is outrageous at any time. To record it during a supposed ceasefire is simply unfathomable,” said Ajith Sunghay, Head of UN Human Rights – OPT. “Palestinians have endured these attacks while trapped within an ever-shrinking part of Gaza’s territory, surrounded from all sides by Israeli forces, and struggling to secure even the most basic necessities of life.”
The Israeli military has consistently expanded its deployment areas starting from nearly 53 per cent of Gaza’s territory at the time of the ceasefire announcement, with the objective of reaching 70 per cent of the territory as publicly stated by the Israeli Prime Minister. The boundary of these deployment areas has been commonly known as the “yellow line”, but monitoring over the past year demonstrates there is no single, identifiable line. Instead, Israeli forces continuously moved inwards, along ever-shifting lines not known to Palestinians, with frequent incursions into Palestinian communities.
While most verified fatalities have been recorded in reported Israeli attacks far away from Israeli military deployment areas, the conduct of Israeli forces around the so-called yellow lines raises serious concerns that it is being treated as a kill zone where lethal force is arbitrarily used.
A two-year-old boy was shot and killed in the early morning hours of 14 June 2026 in the arms of his father on their way to visit an aunt in Wadi Al Salqa, eastern Deir Al Balah. They were on a road approximately 150-200 meters west of the so-called “yellow line”, used routinely by Palestinians before the incident. On the way, the father saw a group of Israeli soldiers stationed at the entrance of an abandoned house in an apparent incursion west of the line. The soldiers were only 10 meters away, he told UN Human Rights – OPT, and they started shooting immediately.
“I saw my boy’s left eye come out of his face,” the father said. “As I realized a bullet penetrated his back and came out from his eye, another bullet struck me in the calf. I saw a bone fragment shoot out of my leg and land on the ground in front of me. I fell to the ground. My son was gasping for his last breath. I tightened my arms around him.”
The boy was taken away by soldiers, his father said, wrapped in a plastic sheet, “no longer moving or making any sounds”. The father was then stripped down, blindfolded, and dragged east, crossing the yellow line. Israeli soldiers moved him from vehicle to vehicle and from one site to another until he passed out from the bleeding around midnight.
“I woke up in Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al Balah. I was informed that my son’s body was handed over as well. I do not know how and when we got there,” the father said.
Since the announcement of a ceasefire in October 2025, as of the end of July 2026, 331 Palestinians have been killed in the vicinity of the so-called yellow line as verified by UN Human Rights – OPT, including 66 children, 27 women, and 238 men. In many verified cases, there was no information to suggest the victims were posing any threat to Israeli forces. Many were carrying out ordinary civilian activities at the time of their killing, and some were killed while inside their tents. Targeting and killing civilians who are not directly participating in hostilities is a war crime regardless of their location or proximity to military deployment areas.
Sunghay reiterated UN Human Rights’ calls on third States to implement their duty to exercise influence over Israel to stop its violations of international law in Gaza, including by ceasing the supply of weapons and munitions facilitating serious violations of international law, and supporting the work of international accountability mechanisms.
“Accountability is not an afterthought or part of a distant future of recovery. It is a cornerstone of deterrence and non-recurrence. And it is already overdue,” he said.
