TEHRAN — In a chilling revelation, Israeli military sources have revealed in cold blood that the Israeli regime was to blame for the killing of five Palestinian youngsters on the final day of the regime's recent assault of the beleaguered Gaza Strip.

Several defense insiders told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that an army investigation into the August 7 strike on the Falluja cemetery revealed that the regime was to fault.

The Israeli army attributed the killings on an errant Islamic Jihad missile at the time of the incident.

Jamil Nijm, 4; Jamil Ihab Nijm, 13; Hamed Haidar Hamed Nijm, 16; and Muhammed Salah Nijm, 16, were killed in a cemetery in northern Gaza while sitting beside their grandfather's grave.

Nazmi Fayez Abdulhadi Abukarsh, 16, was also killed.

Mohammad Sami, an eyewitness, told Middle East Eye that the boys used to visit the graveyard.

"I was monitoring the boys when they came back from the grocery shop and went to sit by the grave," Sami explained.

"They come here every day to sit. Every single day. This is a secure place, and they are accustomed to being here."

Recently, Israeli forces launched a wave of air raids on Gaza for three days, killing 49 Palestinians, including 17 children, and injuring at least 360 others.

+972 Magazine, a non-profit publication established by Palestinian and Israeli journalists, published last week that former Israeli soldiers exposed how the army authorizes strikes in Gaza knowing that civilians will be killed as long as the number is deemed low enough.

In the context of the latest Gaza bombing, Israeli news site Ynet quoted army officials as saying that the ratio of "non-combatants" killed to combatants was "the best of all the operations."

Israel says it launched its offensive against Gaza due to the fear of retaliatory attacks by Islamic Jihad after a senior leader of the group, Bassam al-Saadi, was arrested in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin.

Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has sharply condemned Israel's "unconscionable" slaughter of Palestinian children in the aftermath of the apartheid regime's latest indiscriminate bombardment on the besieged Gaza Strip.

Despite the "disturbing" data revealed by the international body, Israel has once again avoided any disciplinary actions as the West continues to ignore Tel Aviv’s cruel behaviors.

"Inflicting harm on any kid during a conflict is highly unsettling, and the death and maiming of so many children this year is reprehensible," stated the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Bachelet voiced concern about the large number of Palestinians murdered and injured in the occupied Palestinian territory this year, particularly children.

The senior UN official was particularly outraged by Israel's recent unjustified invasion on the confined Gaza Strip, which ignited a three-day struggle with Palestinian resistance fighters.

According to the UN Human Rights Office, the Israeli force killed 19 Palestinian children in the occupied territories, bringing the total number of children killed this year to 37.

According to the report, Israel killed 17 children during its bombardment on the Gaza Strip from August 5 to 7, and two more on August 9 during military raids in the occupied West Bank.

According to another grim assessment, "almost two-thirds of the 360 Palestinians injured by Israel were civilians, including 151 youngsters, 58 women, and 19 senior individuals."

In another proof of the regime's indiscriminate bombing of the Gaza Strip last week, the UN claims "children were the bulk of deaths in a number of situations."

According to the UN Human Rights Office, it observed Israeli attacks in the coastal enclave that seemed to be "civilian items" at first glance, "resulting civilian casualties and damage to civilian objects."

"International humanitarian law is unambiguous. It is banned to launch an attack that is likely to kill or hurt civilians or damage civilian objects in a way that is disproportionate to the concrete and immediate military advantage anticipated. "Such attacks must cease," Bachelet stated.

While the Palestinian resistance successfully forced Israel to accept the terms of a ceasefire in Gaza, tensions remain high in the occupied West Bank, where the regime conducts murderous military incursions throughout the seized areas.

Bachelet has blasted Israeli forces' "widespread use of live bullets," stating it has resulted in an alarming surge in Palestinian fatalities in 2022. So far this year, the UN Human Rights Office in the occupied West Bank has documented the killing of 74 Palestinians, including 20 children.