Fatality figures, both civilian and combatant, have become a central feature of how the war in Gaza is understood, cited, and debated
. Yet one category of combatant is almost never discussed: children. The long-standing
use of child soldiers
by Hamas and other Palestinian
militant groups is absent from mainstream discourse. A search for news coverage on child soldiers in Gaza since 10/7 yields no results from major media outlets. While the deaths of thousands of children in the Gaza war are tragic and deserve acknowledgment, many of those recorded as “child civilians,” particularly teenage males, were active participants in the fighting. Recognizing this reality fundamentally changes what is meant by “civilian casualties” in Gaza and exposes a critical dimension of the war that has been entirely ignored.