At least 67 children have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the latest ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect last month, the UN Children’s Fund (Unicef) said yesterday.
“That is an average of almost two children killed every day,” Unicef spokesperson Ricardo Pires said.
“Dozens more have been injured. There is no safe place for them and the world cannot continue to normalise their suffering.”
Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire on October 11, but it has been repeatedly violated with the Gaza Health Ministry stating that 312 people have been killed in Israeli attacks since then. More than 670 have been injured in addition to 571 bodies recovered from the rubble.
A baby girl was killed in an air strike in eastern Khan Younis in southern Gaza, alongside her parents, on Thursday. On Wednesday, seven children were killed in air strikes in Gaza City and the south.
Medecins Sans Frontieres yesterday said its teams in Gaza had treated several Palestinian women and children with open fractures and gunshot wounds to their limbs and heads this week.
Meanwhile, a total of 4,000 seriously injured girls and boys are still waiting to be evacuated for treatment outside the Strip.
Pires recounted what Unicef teams were witnessing on the ground – children sleeping outdoors with amputations, and others left orphaned and shaking with fear as they survive in flooded, makeshift shelters stripped of dignity.
Warning of winter conditions and compounding risks for hundreds of thousands of displaced children living in shelters, Pires warned that ‘the stakes are incredibly high’ as ‘the new season is a threat multiplier’.
Children have “no heating, no insulation, and too few blankets,” he said. “Respiratory infections are on the rise, while contaminated water fuels the spread of diarrhoea.”
“Too many children have already paid the highest price, too many are still paying it, even under a ceasefire. The world promised them it (war) would stop and we would protect them,” he said and urged: “Now we must act like it.”
Meanwhile, Martin Penner of the World Food Programme (WFP) said while the population is now better supplied with food, thanks to aid deliveries, many goods are unaffordable for most people. A chicken costs $25, for example, he added.
A woman in Khan Younis told him that she did not take her children to the market so they would not see all the food that’s available, but unaffordable. If they go near the market, she tells them to cover their eyes.
“Another woman in the same town said she buys one apple and divides it between her four children,” the WFP representative continued.
“We have a long way to go.”
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