UNICEF says ‘horrific level of child deaths’ occurring in northern Gaza as Israel’s month-long violent siege continues.
UNICEF says more than 50 children have been killed in Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp in the past 48 hours, with the Save the Children charity saying the high number shows “the intensity of this conflict and this war on children”.
“Children are under constant bombardment, in constant fear,” Rachel Cummings, Save the Children International’s Humanitarian Director and Team Lead in Gaza, told Al Jazeera on Sunday.
More than 16,700 children have been killed in Israel’s assault on Gaza since October last year, according to Palestinian officials, more than a third of the overall death toll of 43,341 confirmed by health authorities.
Speaking from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Cummings said that the number of casualties among children does not account for the approximately 20,000 who are missing or have become unaccompanied in this war.
Israel has killed more than 1,000 people during its month-long violent siege of Gaza’s north, during which it has blocked the entry of food and medical aid and crippled health facilities.
“People are being constantly bombarded with aerial attacks, and of course, we know that the food and the water are not sufficient. The convoys of food and water are being denied into the north … It is absolutely catastrophic,” Cummings said.
“We are seeing the apocalypse now unfolding in the north of Gaza.”
Dr Hussam Abu Safia from Kamal Adwan Hospital, northern Gaza’s only functioning facility, said the hospital has been “flooded with victims”.
He urged the international community and health organisations to press for an “urgent humanitarian passage” to deliver fuel and medical supplies and for specialised medical staff to help with the casualties.
‘Horrific level of child deaths’
In its statement on Saturday, the UN agency said the children were killed in an Israeli attack which levelled two residential buildings sheltering hundreds of people.
“Taken alongside the horrific level of child deaths in North Gaza from other attacks, these most recent events combine to write yet another dark chapter in one of the darkest periods of this terrible war,” according to a statement by UNICEF’s Executive Director Catherine Russell.
It also said a UNICEF staff member working on a polio vaccination campaign in the north of the enclave came under fire by a quadcopter while driving through Jabalia, which has suffered the worst of Israel’s attacks.
“The attacks on Jabalia, the vaccination clinic and the UNICEF staff member are yet further examples of the grave consequences of the indiscriminate strikes on civilians in the Gaza Strip. The entire Palestinian population in north Gaza, especially children, are at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine, and the ongoing bombardments,” the statement said.
On Sunday, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said Israeli forces dropped a stun grenade on a polio vaccination centre in Gaza City, wounding at least four children, despite agreeing to a humanitarian pause for a long-delayed inoculation campaign.
The Israeli army also killed 13 Palestinians in an air raid targeting two densely populated areas in the north amid the siege, which has caused a humanitarian crisis. UN rights chief Volker Turk said the “darkest moment” of the conflict is unfolding in northern Gaza.
Israel launched the military offensive, what many dubbed “a war of revenge” against Palestinians, in the wake of a Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. More than 1,100 people, mostly civilians, were killed, and about 240 people were taken captive in the attack.