More children killed in 21 days in Gaza than in world’s conflict zones since 2019: Report

Jerusalem: The number of children killed in Gaza Strip since the start of the Hamas-Israel war earlier this month has exceeded the number of children killed in armed conflict every year globally since 2019, international charity Save the Children said recently.

In a statement, the charity cited numbers from the Gaza Health Ministry of at least 3,195 children killed in the war that was sparked following a surprised Hamas attack on October 7. It also mentioned the deaths of 33 children in the occupied West Bank and 29 children killed in Israel.

According to reports from the UN Secretary-General on children and armed conflict, a total of 2,985 children were killed across 24 countries in 2022, 2,515 in 2021, and 2,674 in 2020 across 22 countries, Save the Children said.

“The numbers are harrowing and with violence not only continuing but expanding in Gaza right now, many more children remain at grave risk,” Save the Children Country Director in the occupied Palestinian territory Jason Lee said in a statement. “One child’s death is one too many, but these are grave violations of epic proportions. A cease-fire is the only way to ensure their safety.”

A further 1,000 children have been reported missing in Gaza and may be under the rubble. Children make up more than 40 percent of the more than 8,500 people confirmed to have been killed in Gaza. More than 6,000 children have been injured in Gaza since the war began.

Over 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, mainly civilians killed during Hamas’ initial attack, also an unprecedented figure. Palestinian militants have continued firing rockets into Israel. Meanwhile, Israeli troops pushed deeper into Gaza Tuesday, driving tanks and armoured bulldozers through the rubble of shattered buildings, scouring for Hamas militants who carried out the worst attack in the country’s history.

As Israel stepped up its relentless bombing of Gaza, desperate Palestinian families scrabbled through debris searching for survivors and mourned over the bodies of some of the thousands killed, draped in white shrouds.

Israeli army footage showed soldiers, who are also seeking to free at least 240 hostages, advancing through a bomb-scarred landscape, with buildings reduced to a mangled mess of stone and twisted metal by weeks of withering air and artillery strikes.

Israel said it had struck 300 targets during the fourth night of land operations in Gaza, where troops came under Hamas anti-tank and machine-gun fire, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed mounting international calls for a ceasefire.

The humanitarian toll has sparked a global backlash, with aid groups and the United Nations saying time is running out for many of the territory’s 2.4 million people denied access to food, water, fuel and medicine.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, says nearly 672,000 Palestinians are sheltering in its schools and other facilities four times their capacity. Thousands of people broke into its aid warehouses over the weekend to take food, as supplies of basic goods have dwindled because of the Israeli siege.

There has been no central electricity in Gaza for weeks, and Israel has barred the entry of fuel needed to power emergency generators for hospitals and homes.

Surgeons are conducting amputations on hospital floors without anaesthetic, and children are forced to drink salty water, said Jean-Francois Corty, vice-president of Medecins Sans Frontieres, which has 20 staff on the ground.

Israel has accused Hamas of using hospitals as military headquarters and civilians as “human shields”, charges the Islamist militants dismiss as “baseless” propaganda.