A meticulous investigative report by the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant documenting what journalists describe as the deliberate targeting of children in Gaza has been awarded the European Press Prize 2026, one of the continent’s most prestigious journalism honours.

The award-winning piece, titled “What the Wounds Tell,” was authored by De Volkskrant journalists Maud Effting and Willem Feenstra, who documented 114 cases of Palestinian children under the age of 15 who were each struck by a single bullet fired by Israeli forces to the head or chest. Nearly all of them died or were left severely disabled.

“This is exceptional journalism carried out under exceptional circumstances. While independent access to Gaza has been made almost impossible, @maudeffting and Feenstra built a rigorous investigation from the accounts and documentation of international medical professionals who had worked inside Gaza’s hospitals and clinics,” the European Press Prize said, praising the work on its official channels.

The journalists chose to focus specifically on children under 15 — many of them aged 3, 4 or 7 — because they can be immediately and unambiguously identified as minors.

“A single bullet in these parts of the body is a clear indication that these children were deliberately targeted,” Effting and Feenstra wrote in their report.

The newspaper spoke with 17 doctors and a nurse from the US, the UK, Australia, Canada and the Netherlands who worked at six hospitals and four clinics in Gaza since October 2023. Many had long experience in crisis zones, including Sudan, Afghanistan and Ukraine.

Fifteen of them told De Volkskrant that they treated at least 114 children aged 15 or younger with a single gunshot wound to the head or chest. The cases were documented between late 2023 and mid-2025 at 10 medical facilities.

One of the doctors, US trauma surgeon Feroze Sidhwa, recalled his first day at the European Hospital in Gaza in March 2024, where he found four boys under 10 with identical head wounds within 48 hours, according to the report.

“How is it possible that here in this small hospital, within 48 hours, four children have come in who were shot in the head?” he told the paper.

Over the following 13 days, he encountered nine more children with similar wounds.

Doctors interviewed stressed that such injuries were not accidental. Forensic experts consulted by the newspaper said the uniform pattern suggested aimed fire, possibly by snipers or drones.

The European Press Prize is one of journalism’s most prestigious honours on the continent, recognising outstanding reporting across Europe.