The United Nations agency for children’s rights (Unicef) confirmed this weekend that in five months at least 13,000 children were killed in the Gaza Strip, victims of Israeli military offensives, which the Jewish State justifies as retaliation for Hamas attacks on October 7th. Unicef also warns that many children are seriously malnourished.
“Thousands more have been injured or are missing. They may be trapped under the rubble. We have not seen this rate of infant mortality in almost any other conflict in the world,” said Unicef director Catherine Russell in an interview with CBS News.
Between October 7 and March 18, according to the United Nations, which cites figures from the Gaza Government, 31,726 people were killed in the Palestinian enclave, including at least 13,000 children. It is estimated that more than 7,000 people are missing. The UN also reports 27 children who died from hunger and thirst as of this Monday.
“I was in wards with children who suffered from severe anemia and malnutrition and where the silence was absolute. Because the children, the babies, didn’t even have the energy to cry”, reported Catherine Russell, referring to the “enormous bureaucratic obstacles” to the entry of humanitarian aid trucks in Gaza, under Israeli control.
Israel has been the target of increasing international pressure due to the number of civilian victims in Palestinian territory, the famine in Gaza and alleged blockages in the delivery of aid to the population.
One in three children under the age of two in the North of the Gaza Strip is today seriously malnourished and hunger is an imminent reality, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees warned last Saturday.
