Welcome Guest! You are here: Home » Middle East

UNICEF Data Reveals ‘Israel’s War on Children’ in Gaza

UNICEF also shared the horrifying case of 11-year-old Razan who not only lost her leg but also almost all of her family members in the Israeli bombing. Read More

Saturday February 3, 2024 4:55 PM , ummid.com News Network

[Ali, an 11-year-old walks over the rubble of his destroyed home at Omar Al-Mukhtar Street in Gaza City. (Image: Omar Al-Qattaa/UNICEF)]

Geneva: UNICEF, the UN arm working for the welfare and healthcare of children, Friday February 02, 2024 released the latest statistics revealing the impact of the Israeli military carnage on the Palestinian children in Gaza.

“At least 17,000 children in the Gaza Strip are unaccompanied or separated. Each one, a heart-breaking story of loss and grief”, UNICEF State of Palestine Chief of Communication Jonathan Crickx said at a press briefing held at the Palais des Nations in Geneva Friday.

“This corresponds to 1% of the overall displaced population of 1.7 million people”, he said.

Jonathan Crickx was in Gaza this week where he met a number of children. “Each one of these children have with him or her a devastating story to tell”, he said.

"Of the 12 children I met or interviewed, more than half of them had lost a family member in this war. Three had lost a parent, of which, two had lost both their mother and their father. Behind each of these statistics is a child who is coming to terms with this horrible new reality”, Jonathan said.

Jonathan also shared the horrifying case of 11-year-old Razan who not only lost her leg but also almost all of her family members in the Israeli bombing.

"11-year-old Razan was with her family in her uncle’s house when it was bombed in the first weeks of the war. She lost almost all her family members including her mother, father, brother, and two sisters”, Jonathan said.

“Razan's leg was also injured and had to be amputated. Following the surgery, her wound got infected. Razan is now being taken care of by her aunt and uncle, all of whom have been displaced to Rafah”, he added.

Jonathan also described in details how the brazen Israeli blockade has made it extremely difficult for the extended family members to take care of the children who have no one to look after them.

"In the middle of a conflict, it is common for extended families to take care of children who lost their parents. But currently, due to the sheer lack of food, water or shelter, extended families are distressed and face challenges to immediately take care of another child as they themselves are struggling to cater to their own children and family”, Jonathan said.

Jonathan further revealed that almot all children’s mental health is severely impacted and they present symptoms like extremely high levels of persistent anxiety, loss of appetite, they can’t sleep, they have emotional outbursts or panic every time they hear the bombings.

"Razan, like most of the children who went through such a traumatic experience, is still in shock. Each time she recalls the events, she falls in tears and gets exhausted. Razan's situation is also particularly distressing since her mobility is severely limited and specialized support and rehabilitation services are not available", he said.

Israeli Occupation Forces are accused of deliberately targeting and killing children by a number of agencies and aid workers including that of the United Nations.

Israeli is bombarding Gaza in the name of “self defence”. The UN Chief and other world leaders however said the ongoing Israeli airstrikes in Gaza goes beyond the scope of self defence and war crimes.

Some UN officials in fact are of the view that Israel as an “occupying party” does not have any right to self defence.

At the same time, the academicians and rights activists have termed the Israeli massacre of Palestinians in Gaza a textbook case of genocide.

On the similar lines, South Africa accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza took the Zionist state to the International Court of Justice. The UN court in its interim ruling asked Israel to utilize all the power in its hand to stop the civilian deaths.

The Israeli carnage however continues unabated despite international appeal and the ICJ ruling.

UNICEF State of Palestine Chief of Communication Jonathan Crickx also said the affected Palestinian children do not have anything to do with the conflict. Yet, they are undergoing unprecedented scale of sufferings.

"These children don’t have anything to do with this conflict. Yet they are suffering like no child should ever suffer. Not a single child, whatever the religion, the nationality, the language, the race, no child should ever be exposed to the level of violence seen on the 7th of October, or to the level of violence that we have witnessed since then", Jonathan said.

Jonathan also called for immediate ceasefire and interim care for the displaced children.

"In these situations, immediate interim care must be made available at scale while keeping children connected to or tracing their families so that they can be reunited when the situation stabilizes."

"The only way to have this mental health and psychosocial support delivered at scale is with a ceasefire. Before this war, in 2022, the child protection cluster led by UNICEF provided this support to nearly 100,000 children. It is possible to scale up now. We have done it before. But it is not possible under the current security and humanitarian conditions.

According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, Israeli bombing has killed more than 27,100 people in Gaza since the war began on October 7, around 11,500 of them children.

More than 66,200 others have been wounded amid a severe lack of medical supplies and functioning healthcare facilities. Thousands more are missing and are under the rubble. The Health Ministry presumes them dead.

 

Select Language To Read in Urdu, Hindi, Marathi or Arabic.

..