Israel has killed more than 13,000 children in Gaza since October 7 while others are suffering from severe malnutrition and do not \u201ceven have the energy to cry\u201d, according to the United Nations Children\u2019s Fund (UNICEF).
\n\u201cThousands more have been injured or we can\u2019t even determine where they are. They may be stuck under rubble \u2026 We haven\u2019t seen that rate of death among children in almost any other conflict in the world,\u201d UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell told the CBS News, a leading American TV network. \u201cI have been in wards of children who are suffering from severe anaemia malnutrition, the whole ward is absolutely quiet. Because the children, the babies \u2026 don\u2019t even have the energy to cry.\u201d Russell said there were \u201cvery great bureaucratic challenges\u201d moving trucks into Gaza for aid and assistance as famine stalks more than two million Palestinians since Israel\u2019s \u201cgenocidal\u201d war began.<\/p>\n
Intense Israeli attacks in Gaza continued Tuesday, with a \u201cdouble-digit number of children killed overnight\u201d and ongoing aid delivery obstacles that are responsible for near-famine conditions, UN humanitarians said. The continuing violence came despite an immediate ceasefire call for the remainder of Ramadan from the Security Council on Monday, prompting urgent appeals from UN aid agencies for the resolution to be respected immediately, to prevent more people dying.
\nSpeaking from Rafah in southern Gaza, UN Children\u2019s Fund spokesperson James Elder said that 13,750 children have now been killed since OCT. 7. Citing reports of \u201ca double-digit number of children killed overnight\u201d, Elder noted that this had happened \u201conly hours after the (Security Council) resolution was passed\u201d.
\nThe southern Gazan city of Khan Younis \u201cbarely exists anymore\u201d, the UNICEF spokesperson added, before describing the \u201cutter annihilation\u201d of constant Israeli bombardment which has left an unreported number of children and families buried under the rubble of their homes. \u201cIn my 20 years with the UN I have never seen such devastation, it\u2019s just chaos, ruin, debris and rubble every single direction, everywhere I look,\u201d he said, reporting on his latest aid mission to the north.Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis \u2013 \u201csuch a critical place for children with the wounds of war\u201d \u2013 is now no longer even operational, the UNICEF official reported, adding that only one-third of Gaza\u2019s hospitals are \u201cpartially functional\u201d now. Further north, where a UN World Food Programme (WFP) aid mission secured the passage of 38 trucks carrying relief supplies on Monday \u2013 for the first time in five days \u2013 Elder described seeing people making \u201cthat universal signal of hand to mouth, desperately asking and seeking for food\u201d. This is despite the fact that hundreds of trucks containing lifesaving humanitarian aid remain over the border in Egypt, UN agencies have pointed out. Citing respected food insecurity analysis published recently warning of Gaza\u2019s \u201ccatastrophic decline into imminent famine\u201d, the UNICEF official also noted that the agency\u2019s own data indicated that one in three children under two years old now suffer from acute malnutrition. Before the conflict, fewer than one in 100 children under five were malnourished, Mr. Elder said. \u201cThis speaks to utter deprivation, this speaks to the devastation of things children rely on \u2013 water and health systems \u2013 but it also speaks to what the numbers speak to, which is a lethal lack of food and nutrition aid still not getting to the north.\u201d Before the war, around 500 commercial and humanitarian trucks reached the enclave every day, but the average today is around one-third of that number but there have also been periods of \u201cweeks where nothing got into the north\u201d, the UNICEF official added.
\nEchoing deep concerns about the desperate scenes unfolding in Gaza, UN World Health Organization (WHO) spokesperson Tarik Jazarevic reported that most patients at Al Amal hospital in the south have now left the facility. Media reports indicated that an evacuation order for the facility was issued by the Israeli military, amid intense hostilities in the west of Khan Younis. The situation is also believed to be dire in northern Gaza\u2019s Al Shifa Hospital which was also the target of an Israeli military raid, but WHO does not have access there, Jasarevic said. \u201cYou have health workers dying, you have hospitals that are under siege, you have people who are looking for shelter in these places and if you can\u2019t get a shelter at a hospital where else can you go?\u201d he told journalists in Geneva. Media reports indicated airstrikes overnight into Tuesday near the southernmost city of Rafah where some 1.5 million people now shelter, many after being uprooted from their homes elsewhere in the enclave.The UN aid coordination office, OCHA, also urged Israel to lift its ban on aid deliveries to the north by UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, echoing earlier calls by the UN Secretary-General. \u201cWe need to dispel this notion that their obligation of getting aid in somehow stops with getting a few trucks \u2013 a fraction of what is needed \u2013 across the border and then once it\u2019s in there as I have seen reported, then it\u2019s not our problem any more, it\u2019s the UN humanitarian agencies\u2019 problem. That is not correct.\u201d He added: \u201cYou cannot claim to adhere to these international provisions of law when you block UNRWA food convoys, when you just last week denied five missions to the north, when we have now reports of Israeli attacks on warehouses and the police that are supposed to help secure this aid inside Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Israel has killed more than 13,000 children in Gaza since October 7 while others are suffering from severe malnutrition and do not \u201ceven have the energy to cry\u201d, according to the United Nations Children\u2019s Fund (UNICEF). \u201cThousands more have been injured or we can\u2019t even determine where they are. They may be stuck under rubble […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359096,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-396668","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n