The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has revealed that Israeli occupation forces have killed 45 children in the Gaza Strip over the past two days, in yet another bloody escalation of the ongoing crimes against civilians, particularly the most vulnerable, foremost among them, children.
UNICEF stressed that this shocking figure serves as “yet another devastating reminder that children in Gaza are suffering above all else, enduring hunger day after day, only to fall victim to indiscriminate attacks.” The organisation added that what is unfolding amounts to a humanitarian tragedy that requires an immediate end to the killings and daily suffering.
These figures are part of a systematic campaign of genocide that the Israeli occupation has been carrying out since 7 October 2023. More than 173,000 Palestinians, the vast majority of them children and women, have been killed or injured amidst a suffocating blockade and a total collapse of the healthcare system.
Furthermore, the World Health Organization (WHO) stated that the ongoing assault is not limited to targeting civilians, but also includes attacks on medical facilities. It confirmed that the European Gaza Hospital in Khan Younis has been rendered out of service due to Israeli strikes. This has cut off access to vital services including neurosurgery, cardiac care, and cancer treatment; services that are scarce in the Strip and for which no alternatives exist.
The WHO further indicated that the hospital had served as a main centre for medical evacuation. Its closure has exacerbated the strain on what remains of the health system, which has been in a state of collapse for months due to acute shortages of equipment, staff, and medicine, as well as the repeated targeting of health centres and ambulances.
The crimes committed in Gaza cannot simply be dismissed as “collateral damage” or incidental consequences of conflict. It is a clear manifestation of a systematic campaign of genocide targeting civilians, especially children, as the weakest link in Palestinian society.
Under the cover of impunity and with political and military support from certain Western states, most notably the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France, the Israeli occupation continues to commit crimes against humanity and violate the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law, including Article 6 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which criminalises the deliberate killing of members of a national group with the intent to destroy it, in whole or in part.
The deliberate and widespread targeting of children is not only a devastating humanitarian catastrophe, but also reflects a systematic attempt to annihilate an entire generation and destroy the collective future of a besieged people, a people whose children are being killed, whose health system is being dismantled, and who are being denied the most basic means of life.
In light of these realities, the need for urgent and effective international action has never been greater, action that goes beyond symbolic condemnations and works towards halting the massacres against civilians, holding perpetrators accountable, and providing immediate international protection for the population of the Gaza Strip, especially the children who are being targeted twice by hunger and by death.
