There Are Risks: Former Indian Judge Leads UN Gaza Children Investigation

 

The Pakistan Times Live | 

Islamabad Times

In 2020, the Indian government transferred a Delhi High Court judge to another court in the middle of the night, in what was widely seen as an attempt to stop him from ruling against a politician from the governing party. Six years later, that same retired judge finds himself at the head of the most far-reaching United Nations investigation yet into the killing of Palestinian children in Gaza. The Pakistan Times Live examines the report, the man behind it, and the international reaction it has triggered.

A 94-Page Indictment

On June 23, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory published a 94-page report examining alleged Israeli violations against Palestinian children between October 2023 and October 2025. The commission, chaired by Srinivasan Muralidhar, concluded that the acts documented amounted to genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in Gaza, alongside separate war crimes findings in the West Bank  findings that represent the commission's own legal assessment rather than a binding judicial ruling.

According to the commission's findings, at least 20,179 Palestinian children were killed over the two-year period examined  roughly 30 percent of all Palestinian deaths in the conflict, a notably higher share of child casualties than in earlier rounds of fighting between Israel and Gaza-based armed groups. The report also documented more than 44,143 injured children and estimated that 58,000 children had been orphaned.

The commission further reported that Israeli strikes on neonatal and maternity facilities had endangered newborn survival, that a blockade on aid had caused starvation-related child deaths and a rise in preventable disease as immunisation rates collapsed, and that Palestinian children had been detained, and in some cases subjected to torture and sexual violence, in Israeli custody. Investigators said they had identified specific Israeli military units allegedly responsible for incidents involving children, with commissioner Chris Sidoti stating at a press conference: "We know who they are."

Commission chair Muralidhar told reporters in Geneva that even with a ceasefire in place since October 2025, "children continue to be killed and seriously injured" in violation of international law. "Even if the bombs and guns fall silent in Gaza and the West Bank, Palestinian children will not simply recover overnight," he said, describing the destruction to their health, education, and development as irreversible.

Who Is Srinivasan Muralidhar?

The 64-year-old Muralidhar is a veteran Indian jurist who served as Chief Justice of the Orissa High Court and previously as a judge of both the Punjab and Haryana High Court and the Delhi High Court, where he sat for fourteen years after his 2006 appointment. He first drew wide national attention in India during the February 2020 Delhi riots, when he held an emergency midnight hearing at his own residence to secure safe passage for injured people needing urgent medical treatment — riots in which 53 people were killed and more than 700 injured amid protests against India's citizenship law.

Shortly after that hearing, Muralidhar was transferred out of the Delhi High Court in the middle of the night, a move widely interpreted at the time as retaliation for rulings seen as inconvenient to India's governing party. He retired from the judiciary without ever being elevated to India's Supreme Court, despite what supporters describe as an exceptional record on human rights, including his willingness to highlight the disproportionate arrest and prosecution of Muslims, Dalits, and other marginalised communities under India's legal system.

He joined the UN commission in November 2025, months after the panel's earlier September 2025 report had already concluded that Israel was committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza — a finding based on four of the five acts defined as genocidal under the 1948 Genocide Convention.

An Awkward Position for India

The situation places India in an uncomfortable position. Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office in 2014, India has become one of Israel's most significant arms customers, purchasing a substantial share of Israeli defence exports. India's Adani Group, led by billionaire Gautam Adani, sits at the centre of that relationship: in 2016 it formed a joint venture with Israel's Elbit Systems to manufacture Hermes 900 drones  among Israel's most widely used strike drones at a facility in Hyderabad, southern India. Other Indian companies, including Tonbo Imaging, Bharat Forge, and Tech Mahindra, have entered similar partnerships, and in January 2023 Adani also acquired a majority stake in Israel's largest port, in Haifa. When asked about these business ties, Muralidhar reportedly said the responsibility for them was not India's alone to bear.

Israel's Rejection

Israel's mission in Geneva strongly rejected the report, describing it as the commission's "second defamatory advocacy report" and stating: "Israel dismisses this libelous sham." While affirming that "every child deserves protection," Israeli officials argued the report ignored what they described as Hamas's use of civilian areas, including homes, schools, hospitals, and mosques, for military purposes, and said the military takes extensive precautions to limit civilian harm.

Independent advocacy groups aligned with Israel's position, including UN Watch, published detailed rebuttals arguing that the report failed to provide a single verified instance of an Israeli soldier deliberately identifying and killing a child for no reason other than the killing itself, and that the report's framing effectively erased the presence of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters from its account of the war.

The commission itself operates independently of the UN Secretariat and does not speak on behalf of the UN as a whole. Some member states, including the United States and Israel, have previously objected to what they call the commission's open-ended mandate and disproportionate focus on Israel compared to other conflicts under UN review.

Conclusion

Whatever the deep disagreement over its conclusions, the report has placed the question of how children have fared in one of this decade's deadliest conflicts squarely back on the international agenda — and has done so through the work of a judge whose own country was, until recently, unwilling to promote him for standing up to power at home. The Pakistan Times Live will continue to follow both the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the diplomatic fallout from the commission's findings.

© 2026 The Pakistan Times Live. All rights reserved.