Gaza: Sneeze and you might get shot, warns UNICEF in alert on child killings

“During a period supposedly defined by restraint and protection, a child has been killed, on average, every single day for more than eight months,” said UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson James Elder. “That is an absurd and devastating figure.”

Killed while playing

Briefing journalists in Geneva via video from Amman, the UNICEF aid veteran noted that the children “were not killed in a warzone” but rather in their homes, schools while playing football or fishing. 

“They were shot, they were bombed, they were struck by quadcopters” operated by the Israeli military, Mr. Elder continued.

The child fatalities are included among the nearly 1,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza and more than 3,100 injured since the ceasefire began, according to the enclave’s health authorities. 

“You sneeze near the Orange Line and you may well get shot,” Mr. Elder maintained, referring to the “continual creeping” of Israel’s so-called “Yellow Line” and “Orange Line” boundaries of occupation. 

‘Utter lack of accountability’

The uncertainty of these moving boundaries and “an utter lack of accountability” are the reason for such a high number of killings, with the Israeli forces responsible for “the vast, vast majority – 90 per cent plus”, the UNICEF spokesperson said.

The UN and partners have repeatedly warned that the conflict has had a catastrophic humanitarian impact since war erupted in October 2023, in response to Hamas-led terror attacks on Israel. 

According to the UN World Health Organization (WHO), no hospital is fully operational in Gaza, while UNICEF warns that water remains a daily uncertainty for 1.1 million children.

“I talk to mothers who have children screaming because they don’t have the clean water to wash [their skin]. Imagine a parent unable to fix that night after night,” Mr. Elder said. “The scale of human suffering in Gaza being inflicted upon Gaza and enabled by others on Palestinian children, it’s almost beyond comparison in our lifetime.”

Today, nearly 1.9 million people have been displaced in Gaza, many repeatedly, while more than 1.2 million have lost their homes. 

In an update to the Security Council on Thursday, UN emergency relief chief Tom Fletcher reported that Israeli denial rates for aid missions into Gaza had dropped from 31 per cent before the ceasefire to 11 per cent today. 

Nonetheless, Palestinians in Gaza remain “deprived of the basics that you would all demand for your own families: safety, shelter, clean water, healthcare, education”, he stressed.

Mr. Elder echoed that dire assessment, explaining that although some fuel is reaching generators still in working order, the Israeli authorities are not allowing spare parts into the enclave to fix broken machines, nor the oil needed to keep engines running smoothly. 

“This is the environment my colleagues on the ground work in, keeping children breathing without a semblance of dignity,” he said.

Other major problems continue to go unresolved in Gaza caused by delays and denials of aid deliveries, not least the massive amount of solid waste still piling up, said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN aid coordination office, OCHA.

“We’ve all heard the stories about the rats, the insects, and so on and so forth, that this causes. So, there is an opportunity, there is a possibility to get rid of all that, but we are not getting the access to it,” he told journalists in Geneva.

More killing in Lebanon 

The OCHA spokesperson also condemned the continuing flare-up in Lebanon overnight, with reports of at least 18 people killed in Israeli airstrikes in the south targeting Hezbollah fighters. 

“We are seeing the same reports overnight, of course, with enormous concern, frankly…more fighting is not going to help anyone,” Mr. Laerke said, highlighting the high level of humanitarian needs across Lebanon and particularly in the south.

“It is infinitely easier and faster to hurt people and inflict damage than it is to restore people’s livelihoods, get them back to their homes, feed them and so on and so forth. There’s just one or two days of this kind of warfare that translate into months, sometimes years, of humanitarian operations on the ground.”

According to UNICEF, more than 770,000 children are experiencing heightened distress after repeated exposure to violence, loss and displacement.