As the escalation of bloodshed in Gaza crosses the seven-month mark, at least 36,439 people have been killed and 82,627 injured in the Israeli offensive against the people of Palestine. At least 15,000 of those killed are children, who became victims of the unprecedented attacks on camps, hospitals, and marketplaces.
During the initial week of Israel’s military offensive in Palestine, over 700 Palestinian children tragically lost their lives. In contrast, the Ukraine conflict, which garnered widespread international attention and media coverage, saw 560 children affected throughout an entire year. According to Palestinian officials, the assault has claimed the lives of more than 8,200 children in Gaza over the first 11 weeks, with at least 8,600 more injured.
In the first week of the conflict alone, over 700 Palestinian children tragically lost their lives, and 3,195 were killed in the first three weeks, compared to 560 children affected throughout the year of the Ukraine conflict. In both cases, as in many others, innocence became the target of cruelty.
According to a report by the UN in June 2023, 315,000 violations against children in conflict took place between 2005 and 2022. UNICEF began monitoring in 2005 in more than 30 conflict situations across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.
“My God, I’m really exhausted”
Thousands of children have faced the traumatic loss of one or both limbs in Gaza since October 7. The data revealed that due to the lack of anaesthesia, the children have to endure not only intense physical pain but also suffer from emotional and psychological tolls.
A London-based plastic and reconstructive surgeon, Ghassan Abu-Sittah, who specialises in paediatric trauma, said, “This is the biggest cohort of paediatric amputees in history.”
Ahmed al-Moghrabi, head of plastic surgery at Nasser Hospital, in an interview with NBC, painted a picture of turmoil in hospitals. He explained how he treated a teenage girl who had burned her arm in a dreadful explosion. Such is the scarcity of facilities that he had to use the light from a cellphone to operate on her. He described how patients have to lie on floors and how medical professionals are leaving because of insecurity.
WHO reported that hospitals are operating at three times their capacity, while the emergency ward is overflowing with patients. Since October, the number of fully functioning hospitals in Gaza has declined from 38 to 12. On May 29, the UN said that the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has also been forced to evacuate its field hospital in Rafah “due to growing insecurity, including artillery and air bombardments, and the evacuation of residents.”
Mental Health
Thousands of children in Gaza have lost their families and faced trauma alone, lacking the comfort of family they need at such a tender age. This has severely impacted their mental well-being. Even before the escalation of violence in Gaza, 50,000 children were identified as requiring mental health and psychosocial support. At present, it is estimated that every child in Gaza is suffering from mental health issues.
Scholasticide
With devastated schools or schools turned into shelters, almost 625,000 children have lost access to education. “With more than 80% of schools in Gaza damaged or destroyed, it may be reasonable to ask if there is an intentional effort to comprehensively destroy the Palestinian education system, an action known as ‘scholasticide’,” UN experts said.
According to the UN,’scholasticide’ is defined as “the systemic obliteration of education through the arrest, detention, or killing of teachers, students, and staff, and the destruction of educational infrastructure.”
