One child is killed every hour in Gaza, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said this week [Getty]
One child is killed every hour in Gaza, the chief of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said on Tuesday.
In a post on social media platform X, Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of the organisation, said there is “no place left for children” in Gaza, adding that since the launch of Israel’s war on the enclave, 14,500 children have been killed.
“One child gets killed every hour. These are not numbers. These are lives cut short” the post read.
“Killing children cannot be justified. Those who survive are scarred physically and emotionally” it continued.
UNRWA, which has been banned from operating within Israel and occupied east Jerusalem, urged for a ceasefire and highlighted the plight of children in the besieged enclave.
The comments come amid a deepening humanitarian crisis and relentless Israeli strikes on the Strip.
On Monday, Israeli forces killed at least 14 Palestinians, including five guards in south Gaza who were escorting trucks packed with emergency aid.
Earlier this year, international NGO Oxfam said more women and children have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli military than other recent conflict in a single year.
“These staggering figures are both appalling and heartbreaking. Influential actors in the international community have not only failed to hold Israel to account, they are also complicit in the atrocities by continuing to unconditionally supply it with arms” Sally Abi Khalil, the organisation’s Middle East and north Africa director said.
“It will take generations to recover from the devastating impacts of this war and there is still no ceasefire in sight” Khalil continued.
An Amnesty International probe earlier this month determined that Israel was committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
The report states that Israel has acted in violation of international laws, by killing, carrying out mental or bodily harm and inflicting Palestinians with conditions that would ensure their destruction.
The group found that Israel had failed to lawfully target Hamas fighters like they said they would, instead harming and killing civilians as well as blocking essential aid into the strip.
It also asserted that Israel had failed to take precautions to spare civilians when allegedly targeting Hamas members and had carried out disproportionate and indiscriminate attacks.
Amnesty said the attacks were “conducted in ways designed to cause a very high number of fatalities and injuries among the civilian population”.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 45,338 Palestinians since 7 October 2023 and wounded over 107,764 others in the same time frame. The war on the Strip has levelled entire neighbourhoods and plunged the Strip into a deep humanitarian crisis.
