JERUSALEM/GENEVA: The Gaza Strip has become a graveyard for thousands of children, the UN said on Tuesday, as it feared the prospect of more dying of dehydration.
Israel has heavily bombarded Gaza since Hamas gunmen stormed across the border on Oct. 7, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping at least 240 others, according to Israeli officials.
The Health Ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip said the strikes have killed more than 8,500 people, mainly civilians.
The UN children’s agency UNICEF said there was a risk that the number of child deaths directly from bombardment could become eclipsed.
“Our gravest fears about the reported numbers of children killed becoming dozens, then hundreds, and ultimately thousands were realized in just a fortnight,” UNICEF spokesman James Elder said in a statement.
“The numbers are appalling; reportedly more than 3,450 children killed; staggeringly this rises significantly every day.”
“Gaza has become a graveyard for thousands of children. It’s a living hell for everyone else.”
He said the more than 1 million children living in the Gaza Strip were also suffering from a lack of clean water.
“Gaza’s water production capacity is a mere five percent of its usual daily output. Child deaths — particularly infants — to dehydration are a growing threat,” he said.
UNICEF is calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, with all access crossings into Gaza opened for the safe, sustained and unimpeded access of humanitarian aid, including water, food, medical supplies, and fuel.
“And if there is no ceasefire, no water, no medicine, and no release of abducted children? Then we hurtle toward even greater horrors afflicting innocent children,” said Elder.
“There are certainly children who are dying who have been impacted by the bombardment but should have had their lives saved,” Elder told reporters in Geneva, via video-link.
He said that without greater humanitarian access into the Gaza Strip, “then the deaths from the attacks, they could absolutely be the tip of the iceberg.”
Elder said that according to figures from health faculties in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, some 940 children were missing.
Others are suffering from trauma or severe stress, he said, such as the four-year-old daughter of a UNICEF colleague who has begun harming herself by ripping out her hair and scratching her thighs until they bleed.
UN humanitarian agency spokesman Jens Laerke added: “It’s almost unbearable to think about children buried under rubble, but (with) very little opportunity or possibility for getting them out.”
The World Health Organization said that a “public health catastrophe” is imminent, amid overcrowding, mass displacement and damage to infrastructure.
WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier warned of the risk of civilian deaths not directly linked to Israeli bombardment.
Asked if people were dying from complications other than those from the bombardment, Lindmeier said: “Indeed they are.”
“We have 130 premature infants that are dependent on incubators, of which 61 percent approximately are in the north,” he said.
The UN humanitarian office in a statement earlier said water supplies to southern Gaza came to a halt on Monday “for unknown reasons.”
Israeli National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said that his country is assuming a defensive posture on the Lebanese front in order to avoid overstretching its forces as it focuses on waging the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Hanegbi added that, “the day after Hamas,” Israel would apply “the lessons learned” against Lebanon’s Hezbollah militants.
