Former Indian judge leads UN inquiry into Gaza children’s deaths
Srinivasan Muralidhar chairs a UN commission that says Israel killed at least 20,179 Palestinian children in Gaza; Israel rejects the findings.
By James Whitfield · Staff Writer
4 min read
A former Indian high court judge is chairing a United Nations inquiry that has accused Israeli forces of killing and injuring tens of thousands of Palestinian children in Gaza. The findings matter because the commission is urging governments to stop certain arms transfers to Israel and to act on International Criminal Court warrants, Al Jazeera reported.
The 94-page report by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel was released on June 23. The commission, now led by retired judge Srinivasan Muralidhar, examined alleged violations against Palestinian children from October 2023 to October 2025, according to Al Jazeera.
The commission said Israel killed at least 20,179 Palestinian children during two years of war, nearly 30 percent of all Palestinian deaths in that period. It also documented more than 44,000 injured children and an estimated 58,000 children orphaned.
According to the commission, the evidence showed patterns that included sniper fire and precision drone attacks on children, restrictions on humanitarian aid that worsened hunger and disease, and attacks on maternity and neonatal facilities. The report also recorded allegations of sexual violence, arbitrary detention and torture of Palestinian children, especially in the occupied West Bank.
Muralidhar told Al Jazeera that the evidence showed Palestinian children had been deliberately targeted and killed by Israeli security forces. He also said Israeli claims that Hamas used Palestinian children as human shields were a myth, arguing that many children cited in the report were killed during ordinary daily activity.
Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected the report, calling it a “libellous sham” and accusing the commission of seeking to vilify Israel, Al Jazeera reported. The ministry said the report ignored Israeli children killed, abducted and targeted by Hamas and overlooked Hamas’s use of Palestinian children as human shields.
Calls for accountability
The commission recommended that UN member states halt arms transfers to Israel where those weapons have involved, or could involve, genocide. It also urged states to arrest Israeli officials wanted by the ICC, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In a separate report released in September, the commission said it had reasonable grounds to conclude that Israeli authorities were committing genocidal acts against Palestinians in Gaza. Muralidhar told Al Jazeera this week that air strikes and killings were continuing despite a ceasefire announced the previous month.
Muralidhar said the report could carry weight through prosecutions and sanctions. He also pointed to foreign nationals serving in Israel’s military, saying their home countries, as signatories to the Geneva Conventions, have duties to prosecute violations when they return.
The retired judge said he had not personally received threats after the report’s publication, but told Al Jazeera that fellow commissioner Chris Sidoti had faced trolling and harassment. “There are risks, but you learn to take these risks,” Muralidhar said.
A judge known for rights cases
Al Jazeera reported that Muralidhar began practising law in Chennai in 1984 and later worked in India’s Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court. His pro bono work included representing victims of the Bhopal gas disaster and communities displaced by dams on the Narmada River.
After becoming a Delhi High Court judge in 2006, Muralidhar was associated with several prominent civil liberties and criminal justice cases. His bench convicted former Congress parliamentarian Sajjan Kumar in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case and convicted 16 police personnel over the 1987 killings of more than 40 Muslim men, according to Al Jazeera.
In February 2020, during deadly riots in New Delhi, Muralidhar held a late-night hearing at his residence to secure hospital access for wounded people, Al Jazeera reported. The next day, his bench directed police to act within 24 hours on a complaint involving BJP leader Kapil Mishra’s alleged hate speech.
The Indian government transferred Muralidhar to the Punjab and Haryana High Court that night, a move widely viewed by critics as punishment for his handling of the riot cases, according to Al Jazeera. He later served as chief justice of the Orissa High Court until retiring in August 2023.
This story draws on original reporting from Al Jazeera.