Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), said Gaza has become a ‘cemetery’ for children.
“They are being killed, injured, forced to flee and they are being forced to flee,” Lazzarini said in a statement on World Children’s Day, observed every year on November 20, Xinhua news agency reported. “They are being deprived of security, education and sports.”
“Their childhood has been stolen, and they are on the verge of becoming a lost generation by losing another school year,” Lazzarini said.
He said children in the West Bank continue to face fear and anxiety. More than 170 children have been killed since last October, while many others have lost their childhood due to detention in Israeli facilities.
On Wednesday, Palestinian groups called for international action to protect children in Gaza and the West Bank, and highlighted the appalling humanitarian conditions they endure.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry issued a statement emphasizing that children are the most vulnerable and affected by Israeli practices, facing grave conditions that violate their fundamental rights, including the right to life.
The ministry warned that children in Gaza face real danger, estimating that thousands are suffering from severe shortages of food and clean drinking water.
The statement also stressed that children in the West Bank continue to face the same ‘criminal’ policies, such as arbitrary detention, and illegal trials, that are prohibited under international agreements. Clear violation of rights.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian National Council said children in Gaza are ‘paying a heavy price’ from October 2023, “in the face of a world that is powerless to stop this genocide.”
A statement issued by the council on the occasion said that the bodies of Gaza’s children had been exposed to various weapons, including rockets and bombs, as well as “the most horrific images of murder and destruction”, many of them starving, thirsty. are dying from. and diseases caused by the siege. Thousands of children have become orphans.
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