UNICEF: Horrific level of child deaths occurring in northern Gaza
More than 50 children were killed in Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp between Friday and Saturday as a result of Israel’s attacks with the United Nations agency UNICEF saying that horrific level of child deaths occurring in northern Gaza.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
In its statement on Saturday, the UN agency UNICEF 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.
“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.
Israel launched the military offensive, what many dubbed “a war of revenge” against Palestinians, in the wake of a Hamas-led attack on Israel’s positions in the occupied territories on October 7, 2023.