A Palestinian child suffering from malnutrition is treated in Rafah on March 5, 2024. (Photo by AFP)
Gaza City, November 26 (RHC)-- The international humanitarian organization Save the Children says about 130,000 Palestinian children aged under 10 in northern Gaza have been cut off from food and aid supplies since Israeli forces launched a siege on the northern part of the already blockaded strip.
“The situation in northern Gaza is not fit for human survival and yet we know there are about 130,000 children under 10 trapped in those conditions, not to mention the thousands of older children and their families,” said Jeremy Stoner, Regional Director of Save the Children.
“The war in Gaza is a war on children. There is no plainer way to illustrate this than to look at the people who make up the death figures – over 4 in every 10 people verified killed in Gaza is a child. Of these children, most are 5–9-year-olds. These are children who should be learning to read and ride bikes. They should not be ending up in mortuaries.”
Describing the situation in Gaza as “the tip of a terrible iceberg”, Stoner called for safe, immediate humanitarian access for the area and urged the international community to take action, in line with its obligations. “Without access and a ceasefire, we are condemning children to perish in hell on earth.”
Many families have been trapped in northern Gaza since Israeli forces imposed a siege on the area early in October because they have been unable to leave it, either due to elderly or disabled relatives, or a lack of alternate options in other parts of Gaza.
Children are bearing the brunt of the war in Gaza, according to Save the Children. The group quoted parents in northern Gaza as saying that they were feeling “suffocated,” with “no energy left in our bodies.”
“I am trapped with my children under relentless bombs, rockets, and bullets, with nowhere to run. My mother is paralyzed, and I cannot leave her behind. My brother has been killed, my husband was taken, and I don’t know if he’s alive. Our home was destroyed over our heads, and we survived by a miracle,” Ruba, a mother of two from a partner organization of Save the Children in northern Gaza, said.
“With no food, no clean water, and constant fear, both my children have developed rashes, and my daughter is passing blood, but there is no medicine, no help, and absolutely nothing I can do. They cry and ask me why we can’t just leave, why their father isn’t with us, why we can’t go back to a normal life.”
As Israel denies the humanitarian access, the UN has warned that the entire population of North Gaza governorate was at risk of dying, with the independent Famine Review Committee (FRC) saying that famine is either imminent or likely already occurring in northern Gaza.
Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7, 2023 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Flood against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime's decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.
The regime’s bloody onslaught on Gaza has so far killed at least 44,211 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured more than 104,567 others. Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under rubble.
