The one million children in Gaza are living a “hell on Earth”, the UN said Friday, with around 40 children having been killed there every day over the past year, reports BSS.
More than a year into Israel's war against Hamas in the besieged Palestinian territory “children continue to suffer unspeakable daily harm”, said James Elder, spokesman for the United Nations children's agency UNICEF.
“Gaza is the real-world embodiment of hell on Earth for its one million children,” he told reporters in Geneva. “And it's getting worse, day by day.”
Since Hamas's deadly October 7 attack inside Israel, which sparked the war, "conservative" estimates put the death toll among children in Gaza at over 14,100, Elder said.
That means that "on a conservative measure, around 35 to 40 girls and boys are killed every day in Gaza, since October 7", he said.
Elder said the numbers -- provided by authorities in Hamas-run Gaza, who put the total death toll at over 42,400 -- were unfortunately trustworthy.
"There are many, many more under the rubble," he added.
And those who have survived the daily airstrikes and military operations have often faced harrowing conditions, he said. Children were being repeatedly displaced by violence and frequent evacuation orders even as "deprivation grips all of Gaza".
"Where would children and their families go? They are not safe in schools and shelters. They are not safe in hospitals. And they are certainly not safe in overcrowded camp sites," he said.
Bd-pratidin English/Tanvir Raihan
