Children in Gaza become faces of war
The children in Gaza are wearing a tremendous share of the scars of this war, says a UNICEF official
Children in Gaza have become the faces of the ongoing war as their stories paint a ‘harrowing picture’ of the human consequences of the conflict, a UNICEF official said on Tuesday.
“Children are wearing a tremendous share of the scars of this war,” UNICEF Communication Specialist Tess Ingram, who left Gaza on Monday after spending two weeks there, told a UN press briefing in Geneva.
Citing the latest figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Ingram said that more than 12,000 children - almost 70 children every day - were injured in Gaza since October 7.
This is ‘almost certainly an underestimate’, she stressed, adding that only a small number of all reported injuries are disaggregated to specify when it is a child that has been injured.
On medical evacuations, she said: “With at least 70 children injured every day, we need the number of medical evacuations to increase so children can access the care they urgently need.”
“And with one child killed or injured every ten minutes, above anything else, we need a ceasefire,” she urged, saying ceasefire ‘is the only way to stop the killing and maiming of children’.
With at least 70 children injured every day, we need the number of medical evacuations to increase so children can access the care they urgently need
TESS INGRAM
Death toll in Gaza reaches 33,843
A total of 33,843 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks
on the Gaza Strip since last October, the Health Ministry in the besieged enclave said on Tuesday. The Gaza-based Health Ministry made the statement as the Israeli deadly onslaught on Gaza entered its 193rd day.
The ongoing onslaughts have
also injured 76,575 Palestinians, it added. It noted that in the past 24 hours, Israel committed five massacres against families across the Gaza Strip that left 46 fatalities, and 110 wounded who arrived in the hospitals.
“Many people are still trapped
under rubble and on the roads and rescuers are unable to reach them,” it added.
Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by Hamas, which Tel Aviv says killed nearly 1,200 people.
The Israeli war on Gaza has
pushed 85 per cent of the territory’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while over 60 per cent of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.
Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. 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.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army on Tuesday detained 25 more Palestinians in various areas of the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
This brought the number of Palestinians detained by the Israeli forces since October 7 to 8,270, according to a joint statement from the Commission of Detainees and Ex-detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners Society. The arrests mainly took place in occupied East Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethlehem, Qalqilya, and Jenin, and included at least one minor and former prisoners in Israeli jails.
Tensions have been high across the occupied territory amid ongoing Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip. At least 468 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli army fire in the West Bank since then, according to the Health Ministry.