Despite an announced ceasefire, children in Gaza continue to be killed at a staggering pace, UN agencies warned Friday, as Israeli airstrikes and gunfire persist in the devastated enclave, according to APP.
UNICEF spokesperson Ricardo Pires said the violence has barely slowed. “Yesterday morning, a baby girl was reportedly killed in Khan Younis by an airstrike, while the day before, seven children were killed in Gaza City and the south,” he told reporters at the United Nations. Without naming Israel, he noted pointedly, “There’s only one party to the conflict in Gaza with the firepower to do airstrikes.”
Since October 10, when the pause in fighting between Israel and Hamas was announced; at least 67 children have been killed in “conflict related incidents,” a rate of two children every day, according to UNICEF.
Medical workers report the violence is not limited to airstrikes. Doctors Without Borders said a nine-year-old girl is being treated for facial wounds after gunfire from quadcopter drones was reported Wednesday.
The World Health Organization’s Dr. Rik Peeperkorn said the ceasefire has offered little real safety. “Although there’s a ceasefire, people still get killed,” he said.
Gaza’s Ministry of Health reports that 280 people have been killed and 672 injured since the truce began, with an additional 571 bodies recovered from the rubble.
Meanwhile, humanitarian agencies are struggling to meet overwhelming demand. The World Food Programme is managing to send around 100 aid trucks a day into Gaza; about two-thirds of its target, but bottlenecks at border crossings mean food often sits for days before reaching families. “The possibility of supplies going bad is high,” said WFP spokesperson Abeer Etefa.
Inside Gaza, the hunger is palpable. WFP’s Martin Penner said residents describe craving anything beyond canned goods and dry rations. Markets are slowly restocking, but prices remain far beyond reach: $25 for a chicken, $20 for a kilo of meat. One mother told WFP staff she buys a single apple and divides it among her four children.
Healthcare remains in near-total collapse. UNICEF says Gaza’s doctors are watching children die from injuries and illnesses they know how to treat but cannot due to lack of equipment, medicine, and functioning hospitals.
About 4,000 children urgently need evacuation for life saving care, including two-year-old Omyma, whose congenital heart condition can no longer be treated in Gaza. “She needs surgery urgently to save her life,” Pires said.
