These Palestinian twins were killed by an Israeli strike east of Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, on August 14, 2024, three days after their birth.

Geneva, August 15 (RHC)-- The Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor says out of nearly 17,000 Palestinian children Israel has killed in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, more than 2,100 were babies under the age of two.

“The number of Palestinian children – whether infants or children in general – killed by the Israeli army is horrifying, and the rate of their killing is unprecedented in the history of modern wars,” it said.

“It also represents a dangerous trend based on the dehumanization of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.  Israel’s military targets Palestinians and their children daily, methodically, and widely in the most heinous and brutal ways possible, and virtually without pause for 10 consecutive months.”

The Israeli army has killed 2,100 Palestinian infants and toddlers under the age of two, out of the about 17,000 children it has killed in #Gaza since the start of its genocide in Octoberhttps://t.co/WXaZtMt44F

— Euro-Med Monitor (@EuroMedHR) August 14, 2024
 

Some 1.7 million people in the Gaza Strip are estimated to have been internally displaced – half of them children.  They do not have enough access to water, food, fuel and medicine.

In July, UN experts sounded the alarm about the Palestinian children in the besieged territory losing their lives due to Israel’s “starvation campaign.”

In the most recent instance of Israeli barbarism, Muhammad Abu al-Qumsan was on his way on August 14th to register his newborn twins' birth, when an Israeli strike killed them both, as well as his wife and mother-in-law. 

“Five minutes after getting the birth certificate, I was getting their death certificates,” Qumsan, who is 33 years old, said.  

The Qumsan family have been displaced three times since October.   His wife, a pharmacist, and the twins were among at least 23 people, including a nine-month-old baby, killed in several Israeli strikes in the area.

Humanitarian organizations say all of Gaza’s children, without exception, have been exposed either directly or indirectly to the traumatic experiences of war.