A
humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in Gaza, with unimaginable and
unnecessary suffering. Israel's war on Gaza has killed more children in the
past five months than the total number of minors killed in four years of
conflict around the world, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees
UNRWA said recently.
اضافة اعلان
"Staggering.
The number of children reported killed in just over four months in Gaza is
higher than the number of children killed in 4 years of wars around the world
combined," Phillippe Lazzarini said on X.
His
post referenced UN numbers showing that 12,193 children had been killed in
conflicts worldwide between 2019 and 2022.
It
compared that to reports from the health ministry in the Gaza Strip indicating
that more than 12,300 children have been killed in the Palestinian territory
between last October and the end of February.
"This
war is a war on children. It is a war on their childhood and their
future," Lazzarini said.
Israel
has waged a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since an October 7
cross-border attack led by Hamas in which some 1,200 people were killed. Over
31,341 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have since been killed in Gaza,
and over 73,134 others injured amid mass destruction and shortages of
necessities.
The
brutal Israeli war has pushed 85 percent of Gaza’s population into internal
displacement amid a crippling blockade of most food, clean water, and medicine.
In comparison, 60 percent of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or
destroyed, according to the UN.
The
children of Gaza have been subjected to indiscriminate attacks by Israel amid
a genocide that has been ongoing for more than five consecutive
months now, worst affected by hostilities, hunger, displacement, and disease,
as well as the lack of essential services and vital aid. Many of these children have
been forced to flee under fire, which has
worsened their already precarious psychological situations.
“Prior to the current war, four out of every five children used to report that they experienced depression, sadness, or fear, and earlier studies revealed an even higher number of mental health issues.”
Over
1.840 million Gazans have been internally displaced, leaving many families
with children living in severely overcrowded facilities that are neither
intended nor suitable for shelter. The majority of the displaced - more than
1.3 million people (including over 610,000 children) are trapped in an area of
just 62 sq km with nowhere else to go.
Children
in the Gaza Strip are at a startling risk of starvation and death,
particularly in Gaza City and the Strip’s northern areas, where
families are struggling to find enough food and water, with children already
dying of malnutrition and disease—a result of multiple crises
as lack of safe drinking water, stopping of sewage pumps, lack
of health care and lack of personal hygiene in the highly
overcrowded shelter centers.
Besides,
since the start of the war, hundreds
of additional children remained trapped under the
rubble of the destroyed buildings with little chance of survival, which is
likely to make the total number of children deaths exceed.
However,
the ongoing Israeli attacks have left over
18,000 Palestinian children injured, with many in
critical condition. Dozens have suffered amputations, and hundreds
more have suffered severe burns to various parts of their
bodies.
On
the other hand, around 25,000 children in the Gaza Strip have lost
one or both parents, and approximately 640,000 have had their homes
destroyed or damaged, leaving them without a place to live.
In
addition, the future of hundreds of thousands of children is still unknown, as
217 schools in the Gaza Strip have been damaged or destroyed during
the Israeli attacks, severely affecting the education process in the
Strip.
“For the children who survive the bombs and ground operations, many will die from famine, dehydration, and disease”
Moreover,
children under the age of 18, who make up 47 percent of the
2.3 million people living in the Gaza Strip, have long had mental health
issues.
Prior
to the current war, four out of every five children used to
report that they experienced depression, sadness, or fear, and earlier
studies revealed an even higher number of mental health issues. Violence, displacement, starvation, and disease, on top of
nearly 17 years of a blockade, have caused
them relentless mental harm. Children as young
as 12 have also been among those arbitrarily detained, causing additional
emotional distress, a compromised sense of safety, and a deterioration in
children’s physical health.
The
war is still going on, children are being killed at a devastating rate, and
whole families are being wiped out.
For
the children who survive the bombs and ground operations, many will die
from famine, dehydration, and disease if humanitarian aid continues to be
blocked most of the time by the Israeli authorities who repeatedly block and
severely restrict the amount of humanitarian aid - while many will also suffer
from longer-term severe mental health impacts.
Children
are terrified and unsafe; their worlds have been destroyed, time is running
out, and their future is unknown. There is now rubble and fear where
homes, schools, and playgrounds once existed. Children look into the eyes of
adults every day, searching for answers, but have no answers.
It
is a lifetime of occupation for all Palestinian children in Gaza, the West
Bank, and Eat Jerusalem, who endured a lifetime of violence and brutal
occupation that has shrunk their worlds and robbed them of their childhoods
long before the escalation on October 7.
The
57-year occupation of the Palestinian territory, including the last 17 years of
the blockade of Gaza, has left children and communities more vulnerable to the
impacts of escalations in violence while eroding their means to cope.
Children’s lives and futures are at risk, as today's situation has never been
more desperate.
All
this is happening while Israel stands accused of genocide at the International
Court of Justice (ICJ) as an interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop
genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is
provided to civilians in Gaza.
“There is now rubble and fear where homes, schools, and playgrounds once existed. Children look into the eyes of adults every day, searching for answers, but have no answers.”
The
international community must take immediate action to stop Israel’s
attempts to turn the Gaza Strip into a real-life cemetery for children, to
protect them instead, and to end its blatant double-standard policy that
allows for Israeli impunity.
Israel must be
held accountable for its clear violations of international humanitarian law,
which are evidenced by its killing and
targeting of Palestinian children and negation of their
special needs for vaccines, food, clothing, and shelter—needs that
are clearly recognized in the Geneva Conventions and their 1977
Protocols.
Najla M. Shahwan is a Palestinian
author, researcher, and freelance journalist. She has published thirteen books
and a children's story collection and has received two prizes from the
Palestinian Union of Writers.
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