War in Lebanon has wounded or killed the equivalent of one classroom of children daily and robbed the remainder of their sense of normalcy since it began two weeks ago, a top official of the UN children’s agency said.
According to Lebanese health ministry figures, at least 111 children have been killed and 334 wounded in Israeli strikes on Lebanon since March 2, when Lebanese armed group Hizbollah joined the regional war by firing into Israeli territory.
That equals nearly 30 children a day.
“That’s a classroom of children every day since the beginning of the war that’s either killed or injured in Lebanon,” UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Ted Chaiban said in an interview.
Lebanon’s child deaths are among 1,200 children killed across the region in recent weeks – nearly 200 in Iran, four in Israel and one in Kuwait.
“They’ve paid a terrible price. And the first thing we’re calling for is a de-escalation, a political way forward to this war,” Chaiban told Reuters in Beirut.
Israel says it does not deliberately target civilians and claims that its warnings give civilians enough time to leave before strikes take place.
Israeli strikes have killed more than 900 people in Lebanon since March 2, according to Lebanese data, and the Israeli military’s sweeping evacuation orders have displaced more than one million people.
Among those are 350,000 children.
“It’s completely disrupting children’s lives. No home, no school, no sense of normalcy,” Chaiban said.
Many displaced families interviewed by Reuters in recent days said shelters had limited electricity, no heating and not enough bathrooms or running water.
Chaiban said UNICEF was providing water, sanitation kits, warm clothes and blankets to families.
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