The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) condemnedUNICEF) The grave violations against which children are exposed Gaza strip During the Israeli war, she confirmed that there was no safe place for them to take refuge, and that the number of children killed in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the war exceeded 4,600 children, while the number of injured exceeded 9,000.
Catherine Russell, Executive Director of UNICEF, said in a statement today, Wednesday, that violations against Gazan children include killing, mutilation, kidnapping, targeting schools and hospitals, and preventing access to humanitarian aid, all of which UNICEF condemns.
“I visited the Gaza Strip to meet with the children, their families, and UNICEF staff,” Russell said in the statement issued after her visit to Gaza. “What I saw and heard was heartbreaking. They have endured bombing, loss, and repeated displacement. Inside the Strip, there is no safe place for Gaza’s million children to take refuge.”
She stressed that many Gazan children are missing and are believed to be buried under the rubble of destroyed buildings and homes, and explained that this is the tragic result of the use of explosive weapons in populated areas.
She said that newborn babies who needed specialized care had died in a Gaza hospital as a result of a power outage due to running out of fuel, a lack of medical supplies, and continued indiscriminate bombing.
It also reported that more than 100 employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees were killed (UNRWA) in Gaza since the seventh of last October.
One million children are on the brink of the abyss
Russell called on “all parties” to provide protection for children, in accordance with international humanitarian law. It also called for opening the crossings and allowing the flow of humanitarian aid to meet the needs of the residents of the Gaza Strip.
She pointed out that the aid that has reached the Strip so far through the intermittent opening of the crossings “is not enough to meet the tremendously increasing needs. As winter approaches, the need for fuel may become more urgent.” She added, “When I left Gaza today, the rain was pouring, adding to the suffering” of the residents of the Strip.
UNICEF warned yesterday, Tuesday, that the lives of one million Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip are on the brink of abyss, in light of the almost complete collapse of medical and health care services.
As she said International Committee of the Red Cross Children’s hospitals in Gaza were not spared from the Israeli bombing, including Al-Nasr Hospital, which was severely damaged, and Al-Rantisi Hospital, which was forced to stop its operations.
Yesterday, Tuesday, a special video clip for Al Jazeera showed the tragic conditions of premature babies in Al-Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip, where work in the nursery department stopped due to the lack of electricity and the depletion of oxygen, which prompted their transfer to one of the other departments in an attempt to preserve their lives.
These conditions caused the death of a number of these premature babies, while doctors issued appeals and warnings that the continuation of the situation would lead to the loss of the rest of the babies despite diligent attempts to keep them alive.
The Israeli occupation army is intensifying its bombardment of populated areas in the Gaza Strip and hospitals, in its aggression against the Strip that has been ongoing for 40 days, which has led to the death of more than 11,000 Palestinians, most of whom are children and women, and the injury of more than 29,000.
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