The head of the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has warned that without a cease-fire in the besieged Gaza Strip, the children of the enclave will become a “lost generation.”
“Children suffer first + suffer most in conflicts & wars. In Gaza it is no different,” Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA’s Commissioner-General, said on X on Thursday. “Children have gone through what no child anywhere in the world should see or undergo.”
Lazzarini said: “Far too many were killed, far too many were injured & far too many will be scarred for life. Those who survived are in deep trauma.”
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Education, more than 15,000 children have been killed since the start of Israel’s aggression on the Gaza Strip, the majority of them schoolchildren.
“Their schools have been destroyed & they lost a whole school year, with no education or play,” stated Lazzarini. “The war robbed the children of Gaza of their childhood.”
“Without a ceasefire they will become a lost generation, easy to fall prey to exploitation. For the sake of children: Palestinians and Israelis, #CeasefireNowInGaza,” the UNRWA chief emphasized.
UN Blacklist
On Tuesday, the UN International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) warned that almost 3,000 children have been cut off from treatment for moderate and severe acute malnutrition in southern Gaza, putting them at risk of death.
“Unless treatment can be quickly resumed for these 3,000 children, they are at immediate and serious risk of becoming critically ill, acquiring life-threatening complications, and joining the growing list of boys and girls who have been killed by this senseless, man-made deprivation,” Adele Khor, UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa said in a statement.
Children suffer first + suffer most in conflicts & wars.
In #Gaza it is no different.
Children have gone through what no child anywhere in the world should see or undergo.
Far too many were killed, far too many were injured & far too many will be scarred for life.
Those who…— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) June 13, 2024
Earlier this month, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres informed Israel’s UN ambassador Gilad Erdan that “Israeli Security Forces” would be named in their annual report which names and shames States/groups that harm children.
This would place Israel on an infamous UN “blacklist” that includes the likes of ISIS and Al-Qaeda.
Staggering Death Toll
Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 37,232 Palestinians have been killed, and 85,037 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
Moreover, at least 11,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
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