UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, today highlighted the “heavy price” paid by children in Gaza, calling on Israel to declare an immediate ceasefire to end what it called the unprecedented violence in the besieged enclave.
“For almost two years, children have been paying the heaviest price in this crisis,” UNICEF spokesman Ricardo Pires told a news conference in Geneva.
Pires said that, on average, a child is killed or maimed every 17 minutes, calling the figure unacceptable and staggering.
The UNICEF spokesman, on the second anniversary of Israel’s war in Gaza, stressed that children are suffering severe physical and psychological trauma, being orphaned or displaced, and being exposed to horrors that no child should ever see or experience.
He said UNICEF welcomed the US peace efforts, but warned that bombing and airstrikes were continuing in both northern and southern Gaza.
US President Donald Trump presented a 20-point proposal on September 29 that includes the release of all Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, a ceasefire, the disarmament of Hamas and the reconstruction of Gaza. Hamas has agreed in principle to the plan.
The agency has been alarmed by repeated denials of humanitarian access. Pires said incubators and ventilators, desperately needed for premature babies, have been destroyed.
“We are talking about children sharing oxygen masks to stay alive,” Pires said, noting that one in five babies in Gaza is born prematurely.
The agency is still waiting for approval to deliver critical medical equipment from the north to the south, despite repeated requests.
“Malnutrition is also on the rise, with more than 10,000 children diagnosed with acute malnutrition in the past two months,” Pires said.
Around 2,400 children in Gaza City are currently being treated for severe acute malnutrition, which Pires warned could be fatal if their care is stopped.
“The disproportionate response that began in October 2023 and continues today must end, and it must end now,” he said.
The Israeli military has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them women and children, since October 2023. The relentless attacks have rendered the enclave almost uninhabitable and have led to mass displacement, famine and the spread of disease.
