United Nations: UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said that more children have been killed there in recent months than in four years of conflict worldwide.
“This war is a war on children. It is a war on their childhood and their future,” said UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini, who described as “staggering” the latest Gaza health authority data indicating that at least 12,300 youngsters have died in the enclave in the last four months, compared with 12,193 globally between 2019 and 2022.
Commenting on X, formerly Twitter, the UNRWA chief reiterated repeated international calls for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza.
More than 31,184 Palestinians have been killed and 72,889 injured, according to the local health authoritiest till date. As of 12 March, 247 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza with 1,475 injured since the start of the ground operation, Israeli army data shows.
The agency reported that at least one staffer had been killed and another 22 injured when Israeli forces hit a food distribution centre in the eastern part of Rafah in the far south of the strip.
“Today’s attack on one of the very few remaining UNRWA distribution centres in the Gaza Strip comes as food supplies are running out, hunger is widespread and, in some areas, turning into famine”, Mr. Lazzarini said.
“Every day, we share the coordinates of all our facilities across the Gaza Strip with parties to the conflict. The Israeli army received the coordinates including of this facility yesterday,” said the UNRWA chief
Since the war began five months ago, UNRWA has recorded an unprecedented number of violations against its staff and facilities. At least 165 UNRWA team members have been killed including while in the line of duty, with more than 150 facilities hit, among them many schools.
The development came as UN humanitarians repeated dire warnings about the catastrophic situation in Gaza, where one in four is close to famine – at least 576,000 people. Some 25 individuals have now died from severe acute malnutrition and dehydration in northern Gaza according to UN aid coordination office, OCHA, 21 of them reportedly children.
Youngsters are among those least able to cope with hunger and disease, the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, has warned, with one million youngsters already uprooted from their homes by the war and some 17,000 unaccompanied or separated children – one per cent of the 1.7 million Gazans displaced.
