Israeli Rights Group Denounces 'Reckless' Fire Policy After 54 Children Killed in West Bank

An Israeli human rights organization, B'Tselem, has reported that 54 children and adolescents were killed in the West Bank during 2025. The group attributes these deaths to a policy of "reckless" and increasingly permissive open-fire rules employed by the Israeli military. B'Tselem's report states that this policy is being implemented on an "unprecedented scale" in the West Bank.

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The murder of Palestinian children and adolescents on an unprecedented scale by Israeli forces is the result of a reckless open-fire policy, expanded to be even more permissive than in the past, which is being implemented in the West Bank.

Over the past two years and eight months, since October 7, 2023, Israeli forces have killed 235 children in the Palestinian territory. An additional five children were killed by settlers residing illegally in the West Bank. B'Tselem asserts that the Israeli military systematically supports this open-fire policy. The organization cited comments from Avi Bluth, the commander in charge of the West Bank, who reportedly said in May, "We are killing like we haven't killed since 1967." Bluth also claimed that 96% of those killed by troops in the West Bank are "terrorists," a designation B'Tselem's documentation disputes, arguing that the military routinely includes civilians not involved in armed conflict and posing no threat at the time of their death.

B'Tselem argues that this classification creates "systematic impunity for killing." The report details a dramatic increase in child fatalities in 2025, with Israeli forces quadrupling the number of minors killed compared to the 2005-2021 average of approximately 13 annually. This spike is linked to the relaxation of open-fire restrictions. In late 2021, the military permitted soldiers to shoot Palestinians suspected of throwing stones. Following Hamas attacks in October 2023, these rules were further loosened.

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We are killing like we haven't killed since 1967.

The report includes specific cases, such as the killing of seven-month-old Sam Fahd Abu Haikal, shot by a soldier while traveling in a car with his parents in Hebron. Similarly, in mid-March, Israeli forces reportedly fired on a family's car in Tamun, killing brothers Otman and Mohamed, aged five and seven, along with their parents. In both instances, the military claimed the vehicles accelerated toward troops, but B'Tselem states that incident recordings, witnesses, or those present at the scene contradict these claims. In 2025 alone, Israeli attacks claimed the lives of three children aged two to nine, nine aged 10 to 13, and 17 aged 14 to 17.

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This identification creates, de facto, systematic impunity for killing.