Israeli forces killed 54 Palestinian children and adolescents in the West Bank in 2025, quadrupling the annual average of 13 recorded between 2005 and 2021, according to a new report released Monday by the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem.

The NGO attributes the surge to a “reckless” and increasingly permissive fire policy that has been systematically supported by the IDF, with 235 minors killed in the territory since October 7, 2023, and an additional five killed by Israeli settlers residing illegally in the West Bank.

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“The unprecedented scale of killing of Palestinian children and teenagers by Israeli forces is the result of a reckless open-fire policy, expanded to be even more permissive than in the past, that is currently being implemented in the West Bank,” the report states. B’Tselem maintains that the army gives this policy “systematic support,” reflected in comments made last May by the commander in charge of the West Bank, Avi Bluth, who said: “We are killing like we haven’t killed since 1967,” referring to the Six‑Day War in which Israel occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Bluth has also claimed that 96% of those killed by troops in the West Bank are “terrorists,” a characterization B’Tselem’s documentation refutes, asserting that the armed forces routinely include in this category civilians who were not members of armed organizations and did not pose a threat at the time of their killing.

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