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Key demographic indicators

14.3

Deaths per 1,000 live births

MICS

Since its inception in 1995, the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys, known as MICS, has become the largest source of statistically sound and internationally comparable data on women and children worldwide. In countries as diverse as Costa Rica, Mali and Qatar, trained fieldwork teams conduct face-to-face interviews with household members on a variety of topics - focusing mainly on those issues that directly affect the lives of children and women.

See MICS Surveys by Country | About MICS

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State of Palestine (PSE) - Demographics, Health & Infant Mortality - UNICEF DATA

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Key demographic indicators for State of Palestine: Under-Five Mortality Rate, Population.

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Children orphaned by Israel’s war on Gaza talk about trauma | Al Jazeera Newsfeed

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Five months after Hamas launched multipronged attacks on Israel, almost half of Gaza's buildings lie in ruins and at least 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the enclave's Health Ministry, which, along with aid agencies, is warning that some of the most vulnerable children in the territory have begun to starve to death.

The Israeli military controls swaths of the Gaza Strip, and it has threatened to attack Rafah, a southern city where 1.5 million Palestinians have fled, unless a cease-fire deal is reached by next week. Israel has not achieved its military goals: destroying Hamas in response to its Oct. 7 attacks, which killed 1,200 people, and rescuing the 100-plus remaining hostages taken that day. It is unclear whether either is even possible.

Abroad, the worsening humanitarian tragedy has heaped international pressure on Israel. Even friends such as the U.S., which gives Israel $3 billion in weapons and other military aid every year, have joined the chorus, rhetorically at least, pressuring Israel urgently to allow more aid into the enclave, where Palestinians are huddled in encampments and sleeping on the streets.

The U.S. is also sponsoring talks in Egypt to negotiate a cease-fire by the start of Ramadan, the Muslim holy fasting month, which begins Sunday. That could mean a hostage-prisoner swap, a halt in fighting and a new flow of aid into Gaza. But large disagreements persist, and there is little sign of a breakthrough.

"When children are starting" to "die from starvation, that should be a warning like no other," Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the United Nations humanitarian office, said at a news briefing Tuesday. "If not now, when is the time to pull the stops, break the glass, flood Gaza with the aid that it needs?"

The raw statistics are grim.

American and U.N. officials have said the death toll given by the Palestinian Health Ministry, which is controlled by Hamas, is likely to be an undercount. Aid workers on the ground estimate thousands more people remain buried under the rubble of destroyed buildings.

About 80% of the population, or 1.9 million people, has been forced to flee their homes, according to the U.N., some up to half a dozen times because of the Israeli military push southward. Around 60% of the buildings in Gaza have been damaged, 45% of them destroyed - including schools, hospitals, bakeries, mosques and thousands of homes - according to research by the World Bank.

Even by the scarce standards of Gaza, which Israel and Egypt have blockaded for 16 years, there are shortages of everything: water, food, fuel, electricity and medicine. The U.S. has sent several aid drops into Gaza in recent days, but even if they are successful, they will not solve the issue. With desperation mounting, more than 100 Palestinians were killed last week in a chaotic encounter with Israeli troops around an aid convoy.

The lack of clean water means diseases such as diarrhea and hepatitis are rife. The lack of food means people are simply starving to death, according to local doctors and international aid workers.

Gaza's Health Ministry has reported that at least 16 children have died since last week as a result of malnutrition and dehydration. It has also expressed concerns for six infants who it said were being treated for malnutrition at Kamal Adwan hospital in the town of Beit Lahia.

Some had underlying health conditions, like Yazan Kafarneh, 10, who was recorded by an NBC News crew before he died Monday. Yazan had been dependent upon a special diet, such as blended fruit and milk, items now unavailable in Gaza, doctors told Reuters.

Pictures showing the emaciated boy covered in blankets and receiving fluids intravenously were widely shared on social media after he died.

After the U.N. warned last week that famine in Gaza was "almost inevitable," Adele Khodr, the regional director of the U.N.'s children's agency, UNICEF, warned Sunday that "the child deaths we feared are here as malnutrition ravages the Gaza Strip."

The World Health Organization, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and the World Food Program have issued similar warnings.

People in Gaza have been "totally dehumanized, deprived of their own dignity and their human well-being," said Dalal Iriqat, a Palestinian associate professor of diplomacy at the Arab American University, based in the occupied West Bank. "Let alone the fact that they have lost all their property, their homes and in many cases their family members."

She shares the view of many Palestinians that the war is not about Hamas at all but rather about what they see as a thinly veiled, decadeslong desire by the Israeli government to push them out of Gaza and repopulate it with Israelis.

Far-right members of the Israeli government coalition have openly supported the idea of expelling Palestinians from Gaza, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly denied that is his policy.

Unbowed by international pressure to ease off his military assault, Netanyahu remains adamant the country must eliminate Hamas, which does not recognize Israel's existence and is a banned terrorist group in the West.

The 134 remaining hostages, some of whom are believed to be dead, are a constant and growing torment not just for their campaigning families but also for the nation and the Jewish diaspora as a whole. In a report Tuesday, which many saw as long overdue, the U.N. said there was "clear and convincing" evidence that women and children had been subjected to "sexual violence, including rape" and "sexualized torture," after the Oct. 7 attacks. The hostages in Gaza may still be suffering the same treatment, it said.

Polls indicate most Israelis support the war in Gaza.

"What happened on Oct. 7 is very much still vivid in the Israeli mindset," said Nimrod Goren, a Jerusalem-based senior fellow for Israeli affairs at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. "Even people who have lost all faith in Netanyahu still believe that the military objectives that were stated were the right ones to pursue - it's very different to where the international discourse is at."

Militarily, Israel controls most of northern Gaza, as well as swaths of the south, according to a rolling analysis by the Institute for the Study of War, a nonprofit think tank in Washington. It began a relentless bombing campaign of Gaza hours after Hamas' attack, and on Oct. 27 it launched a land invasion.

Netanyahu has heavily signaled that he intends to attack Rafah next, believing it to be the location of four Hamas battalions. The government has instructed people sheltering there to evacuate once again, to which many of them respond: where?

Another problem for Israel is that Hamas has not been totally purged from the north, with some locals and analysts seeing signs it has been regrouping in pockets outside Israeli control. Israel says it has killed as many as 10,000 Hamas fighters. Both that figure and the number of Hamas members in total are unconfirmed, making it difficult to understand the extent to which the group has been truly weakened.

Israel may be able to eradicate the militants and their bases. But harder to kill are the ideas behind the group: at once virulently antisemitic and reviled in the West but also seen as a bastion of resistance by many Palestinians who feel that every other avenue, peaceful or otherwise, has been thwarted.

"A major failure - one I think that is deliberate - is the failure to prepare for the 'day after,'" said Michael Horowitz, the head of intelligence at Le Beck International, a security and risk management consultancy.

"There is no one to take over authority in Gaza, not even the beginning of a solution."

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In the ruins of Gaza, children are starving to death and there's no cease-fire in sight

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"When children are starting" to "die from starvation, that should be a warning like no other," said a spokesperson for the U.N. humanitarian office.

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The Israeli-Palestinian conflict exacts a heavy price, particularly on the region's children.

In the past week, amid the most intense fighting between Israel and Gaza militants since 2014, 52 Palestinian children were killed, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. The United Nations reports two Israeli children died during the current escalation.

The deaths of children capture international attention, but human rights experts say more focus is needed on the traumatized children surviving the conflict. In a video widely shared on social media, a girl in Gaza grows emotional while gesturing to the ruins around her, seemingly pleading with viewers as she asks, "what do you expect me to do? Fix it? I'm only 10."

While experts on conflict and trauma say both Israeli and Palestinian children will experience adverse mental health effects in the short and long-term, children living in Gaza are more vulnerable because they are poorly protected from attacks, exposed to more civilian causalities and lack mental health care. In Gaza, more than 40% of the population are children under 14 years old. Hamas, a militant Islamic group, has controlled Gaza since 2007.
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"(What) children in Gaza are exposed to on a regular basis exceeds anything, anything that any children anywhere else in the world experience," said Jess Ghannam, a professor of psychiatry in the School of Medicine at the University of California San Francisco who specializes in the health consequences of war on displaced communities and the psychological effects of armed conflict on children. "There's basically no place to go for these children. They are unable to escape."

Trauma can have a greater impact on a person when they are unable to remove themselves from a dangerous situation. Ghannam, who has made more than two dozen visits to Gaza in the last two decades, said a distinct feature of the conflict is that the children in Gaza's narrow coastal strip feel trapped with borders on either side from Egypt and Israel. In other conflict regions, children and their caregivers are able to move. There is some feeling of control.

A 2020 study published in the journal "Frontiers in Psychiatry" found that among Palestinian children and adolescents in the Gaza Strip, nearly 90% had experienced personal trauma and more than 80% had witnessed trauma to others. In Gaza, it is virtually impossible, experts say, for children to access mental health care.

"It's that utter sense of and inability to do anything about it that makes the impact of it far worse," Ghannam said.

Palestinian and Israeli children both suffer trauma, but differences abound

Children on both sides of the conflict are exposed to traumatic events, to the terror of sirens and sudden explosions. Jennifer Leaning, a senior research fellow at the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard, said in parts of Israel that were particularly vulnerable to attacks in 2014, children were told to avoid going to school or to only stay in heavily protected spaces when attending. Since bathrooms were typically outside, many children avoided them.

"The kids basically stopped going to the bathroom during the eight or 10 hours of school because they were so terrified," she said.

But both Ghannam and Leaning say children in Gaza lack protective factors like the ones Israel affords its citizens.

"Many Israeli children have the same kind of PTSD but if you look at the context of being able to get to a bomb shelter, having access to an integrated healthcare system, being able to access mental health services and have parents who can protect them. The differences are enormous," Ghannam said.

Children in Israel will have many of the same symptoms, Leaning said, but one cannot underestimate the differences in sources of safety.

"They have parents and grandparents and extended family that can give them perspective and they have a government that they rely on and trust," she said. "There are none of those assets or supports for kids in Gaza."

Leaning said even if the infrastructure were there, mental healthcare is unlikely to be very effective in an environment where trauma is ongoing.

"Mental healthcare only really begins to work when the acute trauma is not raining down," she said.

Caregivers influence coping, but many parents suffer themselves

How a child copes with trauma is directly tied to their level of caregiver support. A calm and loving parent can help mitigate the impact of a traumatic event on a child.

"The fear the adult caretaker feels and expresses in many ways permeates the views of the children," Leaning said. "So to the extent that the parents can stay serene, or very collected, or have the appearance of being in control, this is the locus of safety for the children."

Caregivers on both sides of the conflict struggle with raising their children under the threat of violence. But in Israeli parents have access to mental healthcare and have the autonomy to move their children to safer spaces, within their own country or outside of it. In Israel, a highly effective missile defense system called the Iron Dome also means rocket attacks from Gaza rarely hit their targets.

In Gaza, Leaning said parents "are afraid and running and trying to find any kind of shelter before the next night comes."

"The notion that the adult caretakers now can provide a cone of protection and solidity for the children I think is highly unlikely. ... Families are deeply afraid, and children are exposed to that fear, and in an analog process absorb it," she said.

For children who have lost adult caregivers during the conflict, experts say trauma is intensified.

Childhoods marked by trauma

In places untouched by war, childhood is marked by milestones. For children growing up in conflict zones, childhood is marked by trauma.

When aid workers visit Gaza, it's typical to see children of all ages huddled against their parents, Leaning said. A 2-year-old who would normally be learning to separate from their parents, instead clings to them. Leaning said it's not uncommon for children who have met their milestones to regress.

Young children aren't spending enough time playing, which is central to healthy growth. They aren't building social emotional skills with their peers. Their lives are defined by fear, often concerning the safety and permanence of their caregivers.

For older children, Leaning said there is often an problem with unfocused rage.

"The kids have great difficulty expressing their feelings," she said. "They'll be silent, and sullen, many of them will get very depressed, but the expression of feeling comes out in rage, acting out, which makes life difficult for any parent, let alone what these parents are dealing with."

The importance of hope

Mental health experts say hope is an essential component of basic functioning. It's fundamental for mental well-being. In Gaza, Leaning said children and their parents struggle to hope.
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She said she's witnessed parents in a state of "semi-despair." They want better for their children, for them to be educated, to excel, to access a better life. But for many children living amid violence, the dreams of their parents feel elusive.

"These children don't see how that's going to mean anything. ... These older kids slip into this sullen depression, and/or militancy," Leaning said. "There's a hopelessness that makes them do risky things. What is happening to the children is actually in the worst interest of anyone who seeks peace between Israel and Palestine."

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Trauma children in Gaza experience is unlike anywhere else in the world, experts say

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In Gaza, more than 40% of the population are children under 14 years old. The impact of their trauma will be lifelong.

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-The author is General Director of Defense for Children International - Palestine.
ISTANBUL
Palestinian children, confront a reality deeply marred by the enduring consequences of the Israeli military occupation, where daily challenges and unpredictability become a harsh norm against a backdrop of historical struggles and geopolitical complexities. This multifaceted plight transcends typical childhood obstacles, casting a pervasive shadow over every aspect of their lives.

Children living under Israeli military and apartheid occupation in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip routinely face severe fundamental rights denials. Their right to life, education, adequate housing, and access to healthcare is consistently denied, perpetuated by the decades-long Israeli military occupation. Additionally, a complex and sometimes outdated Palestinian legal system contributes to rights violations by Palestinian actors against children, putting them at risk violence and exploitation. The expansion of Israeli settlements and the Israeli settler's terrorist attacks confines Palestinian children to villages and towns, exposing them to the real danger to their lives, limited educational access, and enduring psychological issues.

The Gaza Strip is currently experiencing a significant wave of aggression and military attacks from the sky, the sea and from the land, further endangering the safety of children and exacerbating an existing mental health crisis. Save the Children reports that Palestinian children in Gaza live in constant fear for their lives due to escalating tensions. Since October 7th, Gaza has been under a genocidal war, resulting in the tragic loss of more than 12,000 lives, including over 4,900 children. The Ministry of Health struggles to record the exact number of martyrs due to the destruction of infrastructure caused by airstrikes, sea, and ground bombs. The overwhelming impact on the health sector impedes the accurate documentation of casualties, highlighting the dire humanitarian crisis faced by the people of Gaza.

According to the latest statistics issued by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) this year, almost half of Palestinian society consists of children. The number of children constitutes about 44% of the total population (41% in the West Bank and 47% in the Gaza Strip). The PCBS added that by mid-2023, there would be 2.39 million children in Palestine under the age of 18, with 1.22 million males and 1.17 million females.
Right of freedom
Palestinian children's right to freedom is significantly impacted by the ongoing Israeli occupation. The right to special care and assistance for children is reaffirmed by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, yet Palestinian children living under Israeli occupation are frequently denied their right to life in freedom.

Each year approximately 500-700 Palestinian children, some as young as 12 years old, are detained and prosecuted in the Israeli military court system, while the most common charge is stone throwing. Moreover, ill-treatment in the Israeli military detention system remains "widespread, systematic, and institutionalized throughout the process," according to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) report named Children in Israeli Military Detention Observations and Recommendations.

Between 2016 and 2022, many affidavits were provided from 766 children detained in the West Bank; the results showed three-quarters of them had experienced some form of physical violence following arrest. Two thirds of the children were not adequately informed of their rights during interrogation, and 97% of them did not have a parent present. And in 85.5% of the cases, Israeli forces did not inform the children of the reason for their arrest, and beside that the interrogators used position abuse, threats, and isolation to coerce confessions from some of these children. Before interrogation, these children were left to wait for prolonged periods without access to water, food, or bathroom facilities, leading to severe discomfort and humiliation. DCIP documented 178 Palestinian boys, including children in administrative detention, held in solitary confinement, for an average period of 16.5 days, during the reporting period.

The No Way to Treat a Child campaign highlights that under an Israeli military detention system that denies them fundamental rights, Palestinian children and adults alike face arrest, prosecution, and imprisonment.
Right of access and movement, including education and healthcare
Palestinian children's right of access and movement is significantly impacted by the ongoing constraints imposed from the occupation. They are frequently denied access to healthcare, education, and adequate housing, among other rights, due to the Israeli occupation in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.

Human Rights Watch's submission to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child points out to the effects of movement restrictions and forcible displacement on Palestinian children. And it calls for an end to the generalized ban on travel to and from Gaza, as well as the free movement of people to and from Gaza, subject to individual screenings for security purposes. These factors, as example, collectively obstruct Palestinian children's freedom of access and movement, perpetuating their vulnerability and decreasing their prospects for a future free from injustice and safety.
Access to education
Poverty has a wide range of negative effects on children's lives and many children facing obstacles in accessing education, particularly in areas without schools. This challenge increases the chances of drop out of schools at an early age to work, especially in refugee camps, marginalized Bedouins and herding communities and villages.

In light of the presence of barriers, checkpoints, and the separation wall in the West Bank, these obstacles can make it challenging for students to reach their schools. And this lack of access results in disruptions to their education, above and beyond, the presence of Israeli military forces and operations near schools can create a stressful and potentially dangerous environment for children.

It is worth mentioning that the Israeli Forces are targeting schools for several years. Three schools have been demolished across the West Bank in the past 12 months, affecting 132 Palestinian students. On top of that, 53 Palestinian schools housing and teaching more that 6,000 Palestinian children across the occupied Palestinian territory are at risk of demolition by Israeli authorities.
Healthcare access
While children are affected by the difficulty of obtaining an education, they also suffer from difficulty accessing health care appropriate for their age. Healthcare delivery to Palestinian children is hindered by the destruction of medical facilities, restrictions on the movement of medical personnel and supplies, and an all-around unstable security situation.

In emergency situations, delays at checkpoints and other barriers can be particularly concerning as they impede timely access to medical facilities, thereby affecting the health and well-being of individuals involved. The restriction of movement makes it more difficult for families from seeking medical treatment for their children in a timely manner.

Despite Israel accession to the UNCRC, the full realization of this treaty's applicability remains elusive, and children in Palestine continue to face challenges in accessing their fundamental rights. The child rights context in Palestine is characterized by ongoing military tensions, the enduring impact of the Israeli occupation. Palestinian children grapple with various obstacles, due to military checkpoints, the construction of the apartheid wall, and economic hardship, particularly affecting those in marginalized areas. The continuation of the Israeli army's attacks on the Palestinian population, especially children, and the accompanying operations of killing, arbitrary arrest, torture, and deprivation of the rest of the basic rights of children. All of this comes within a systematic Israeli policy to create a Palestinian generation without hope, and thus strike the entire Palestinian future.

*Opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Anadolu.

Anadolu Agency website contains only a portion of the news stories offered to subscribers in the AA News Broadcasting System (HAS), and in summarized form. Please contact us for subscription options.

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OPINION - A glimpse into the lives of Palestinian children

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Expansion of Israeli settlements and the Israeli settler's terrorist attacks confines Palestinian children to villages and towns, exposing them to the real danger to their lives - Anadolu Ajansı

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More than 8,663 Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 7, according to the government media office, which added that thousands more are missing under the rubble amid relentless bombardment.

An overwhelming number of more than 21,000 people killed in the nearly three months of Israeli bombardment, which is the most destructive in recent history, have been civilians. Israel has repeatedly targeted schools and even neo-natal care centres were have not been spared, resulting in the killing of newborn babies.

According to Save the Children data in early November, a child was being killed every 10 minutes. The UN has called the besieged Palestinian enclave "a graveyard" for children due to the high casualty figures.

"Our gravest fears about the reported numbers of children killed becoming dozens, then hundreds, and ultimately thousands were realised in just a fortnight," James Elder, a spokesperson for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), said on October 31.

"Gaza has become a graveyard for thousands of children. It's a living hell for everyone else."

The Defence for Children International-Palestine, an NGO, said early last month that Israeli forces killed twice as many Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip in October as the total number of Palestinian children killed in the occupied West Bank and Gaza combined since 1967.

In nearly two years of the Russia-Ukraine war, 510 children were killed, which represents a little less than one child per day.

Last week, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) warned that limited access to clean water and sanitation amid Israel's relentless bombardment posed a grave risk to children in Gaza.

Displaced children in southern Gaza do not have enough water to meet their basic survival needs, the UN Children Agency's Executive Director Catherine Russell said.

"Without safe water, many more children will die from deprivation and disease in the coming days," Russel said.

In the southern city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of people - half of them estimated to be children - have fled since the beginning of December, water and sanitation situation systems are "in an extremely critical state", Russel added.

The water shortages have already contributed to 20 times the monthly average of cases of diarrhoea among children under the age of five, she said.

More than half a million people in Gaza - a quarter of the population - are starving, according to a report from the United Nations and other agencies released on Thursday.

Israel launched the brutal war in the wake of the Hamas attack that left some 1,139 people dead. The Palestinian resistance group also took some 240 people captive. Israel has pledged to continue its military offensive until what it calls the destruction of Hamas and the release of all the captives.

But its military tactics have been criticised for the widespread bombardment that has caused unprecedented destruction and loss of lives. Human rights organisations and UN agencies have spoken against Israel's collective punishment of the Palestinian people.

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Gaza dubbed 'a graveyard' for children as more than 8,000 children killed and thousands displaced by Israel's war.

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RAMALLAH, 11 January 2023 - More than 10,000 children have been killed by Israeli airstrikes and ground operations in Gaza in nearly 100 days of violence, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, with thousands more missing, presumed buried under rubble, Save the Children said.

The latest data from the Ministry of Health in Gaza shows more than 10,000 of Gaza's 1.1 million children - or 1% of the total child population - have been killed since an attack on Israel on 7 October [1] and the assault on Gaza that has followed. The war will have been ongoing for 100 days on Sunday 14 January.

Children in Gaza surviving the violence are enduring unspeakable horrors, including life-changing injuries, burns, disease, inadequate medical care, and losing their parents and other loved ones. They have been forced to flee violence, often repeatedly, with no safe place to go, and face the terror of an uncertain future. About 1,000 children in Gaza have lost one or both of their legs, many having them amputated without anesthetic, and will require a lifetime of medical care.

Lana*, an 11-year-old girl in Rafah in the south of Gaza, said:

"The war has affected us so badly. We had to leave our homes and couldn't do anything. We learned many things during the war, like how important it is to save water. I hope the war ends, and we live in peace and safety."

More than 40% of those killed in Gaza since the attack on Israel and escalation of violence in the occupied Palestinian territory began on 7 October are children.

Save the Children said that a record number of grave violations [2] against children have been reported in 100 days of violence that started on 7 October, including:

370 schools in Gaza damaged or destroyed [UNICEF]

94 hospitals and healthcare facilities in Gaza attacked [WHO]

More than 1,000 Palestinian children lost one or both legs [UNICEF]

Around 1.1 million children - the entire child population in Gaza - denied access to adequate humanitarian assistance

Abductions of children in Israel and 33 Israeli children killed [OCHA via Israeli authorities]

Jason Lee, Save the Children's Country Director for the occupied Palestinian territory, said:

"For every day without a definitive ceasefire, 100 children on average have been killed. There can never be any justification for killing children. The situation in Gaza is monstrous and a blight on our common humanity.

"For nearly 100 days, children have been paying the price for a conflict they have no part in. They are terrified, hurt, maimed, displaced. One percent of the child population of Gaza has already been killed by Israeli bombardments and ground operations. Others risk being killed by starvation and disease with famine coming ever closer. For children who have survived, the mental harm inflicted and the utter devastation of infrastructure including homes, schools, and hospitals has decimated their futures.

Despite the record number of children killed and maimed, the international community has failed to act again and again. One grave violation committed against children is one too many. For the last three months, children in Gaza have faced grave violations every day, while conditions to provide them with the humanitarian assistance they need are simply not there. All parties must agree to a definitive ceasefire now."

Save the Children is calling for a definitive ceasefire to save and protect the lives of children in Gaza and has called on the Government of Israel to allow the unfettered flow of aid and the resumption of entry of commercial goods into Gaza to prevent children from dying of starvation and disease.

Save the Children has been providing essential services and support to Palestinian children impacted by the ongoing conflict since 1953. Save the Children's team in the occupied Palestinian territory has been working around the clock, prepositioning vital supplies to support people in need, and working to find ways to get assistance into Gaza.

-ENDS

[1] In the Ministry of Health in Gaza report for 9 January 2024, they report 'more than 10,000' children have been killed since 7 October.

[2] The six grave violations against children are: Killing and maiming of children; Recruitment and use of children by armed forces and armed groups; Sexual violence against children; Attacks against schools or hospitals; Abduction of children; and denial of humanitarian access for children.

Randa Ghazy | Save the Children | Regional Media Manager- North Africa, Middle East & Eastern Europe Phone/WhatsApp: +44 7429 980655 Email: randa.ghazy@savethechildren.org www.savethechildren.net

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Gaza: 10,000 children killed in nearly 100 days of war - occupied Palestinian territory

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News and Press Release in English on occupied Palestinian territory about Health and Protection and Human Rights; published on 11 Jan 2024 by Save the Children

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JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

The Israeli military continues its airstrikes and ground campaign in Gaza in response to the attacks by Hamas on October 7. That assault left more than 1,400 Israelis dead and more than 200 taken hostage. As the conflict continues, the impact on Gaza's children has become shockingly evident. According to Palestinian health officials, of the more than 9,000 Palestinians who have been killed, nearly half were children. Thousands more have been injured and have lost family members. Kids growing up in Gaza have never known a life without the threat of violence and conflict. That kind of cumulative trauma researchers say can have a profound impact on a child's emotional development unless they're given a chance to recover. NPR's Rhitu Chatterjee has more.

RHITU CHATTERJEE, BYLINE: Iman Farajallah grew up in Gaza but has lived in the United States for nearly 20 years. She's a psychologist working with refugee kids at a community clinic in San Francisco, but most of her family is still in Gaza.

IMAN FARAJALLAH: My siblings, all of their homes has been bombed - all of them. My siblings, my nephews, my everybody - they have no home.

CHATTERJEE: The last time she saw them, she says, was last summer, and it was a stressful visit.

FARAJALLAH: As we were there, the Israeli bombed twice. Of course, there, you cannot even sleep, sit or rest because you have the drones buzzing over your head 24/7.

CHATTERJEE: She says her own kids, born and raised here in the U.S., have come to dread going there. But when she was growing up, there was no escape.

FARAJALLAH: The experience was so vicious, so scary, so harmful that there is no words that you can actually describe it. How can you describe when the Israeli soldiers, they come and jump from the walls to our home - beating up my brothers, beating up my mother?

CHATTERJEE: And yet, as a child, she was never able to talk to anybody about how traumatic those experiences were for her. So in recent years, Farajallah has returned to Gaza to talk to kids, to document how the violence is affecting them. She says most children are struggling with a range of mental health symptoms.

FARAJALLAH: Fear of darkness, general tension, flashback, nightmares, avoidance, difficulty sleeping and a recollection of their trauma.

CHATTERJEE: Scores of other studies have documented high rates of post-traumatic stress among kids in Gaza and the West Bank. Eric Dubow is at Bowling Green State University.

ERIC DUBOW: It's completely debilitating, and their sense of the world is shattered. They don't feel secure in their families. They don't feel secure in their relationships with others. They're constantly on guard.

CHATTERJEE: In fact, Dubow and his team followed Palestinian and Israeli children for seven years. They wanted to know just how much ethnic political violence kids were being exposed to.

DUBOW: We were able to look at exposure to violence from middle childhood, around age 8, all the way through late adolescence, emerging adulthood.

CHATTERJEE: They found that 55% of Palestinian children had at least one friend or acquaintance die due to political or military violence. In comparison, 13% of Israeli Jewish kids and only 3% of Israeli Arab kids had the same experience. The researchers looked at a whole range of other kinds of exposures to violence, and Dubow says...

DUBOW: There's no question that the Palestinian kids are being exposed to a lot more political violence than the Israeli kids.

CHATTERJEE: The researchers also wanted to know how children growing up with violence were reacting to it on the inside. So they did an experiment and showed the kids a violent video to gauge their emotional reaction to it.

DUBOW: We actually hooked up kids to this machine that basically has little straps that go around the fingers and measures the amount of sweat under the skin.

CHATTERJEE: Because the more someone sweats, the more emotionally aroused they are. They found two opposite reactions among the kids. One group got sweaty and anxious after watching the video.

DUBOW: Those kids actually show more post-traumatic stress symptoms because they are emotionally aroused by the violence.

CHATTERJEE: But the other kids weren't aroused by the violence. They seemed numb to it. And these are the kids, Dubow says, who had become aggressive towards others. And they were more likely to participate in violent political protests as young adults. Dubow's colleague, Paul Boxer, is at Rutgers University. He says when kids are surrounded by violence from a young age, some start to believe that's how the world works.

PAUL BOXER: That the world is a more violent place, that aggression is a good way to solve problems and the world in the broader sense, is a very hostile environment where there may be others who are consistently out to get them.

CHATTERJEE: Boxer and his colleagues found that kids in the West Bank and Gaza fared worse for every outcome they looked at than children in Israel. The ongoing conflict, he says, is not going to change that.

BOXER: It's almost unfathomable to think about what's happening to kids there.

CHATTERJEE: What kids there need most urgently, he says, is to be safe.

BOXER: So making sure kids are warm and clothed and fed, kept physically safe.

CHATTERJEE: Only then, he says, can they receive any mental health care. But Iman Farajallah, the Palestinian American psychologist, says mental health care alone can't heal children in Gaza.

FARAJALLAH: Even when you work with a child, he's going to ask you - but what if another war broke out? Can you protect me? Can you protect my parents? Our answer is no, we can't.

CHATTERJEE: She says for children in Gaza to have a real chance to recover from their traumas, the conflict needs to end once and for all.

Rhitu Chatterjee, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF JONATHAN HANNAU'S "WE WATCHED THE COASTLINE")

SUMMERS: If you or someone you know is in a mental health crisis, call or text the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988.

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Palestinian children exposed to violence are suffering from PTSD and depression

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Years of research on kids in Palestine have found high rates of post traumatic stress and depression as a result of being exposed to chronic ethnic-political violence.

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Exposure to Violence and Instability among Children in Palestine - Ballard Brief

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The Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its resulting violence, both government-sanctioned and unsanctioned, are some of the main dangers to children in this region.

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An estimated 5,500 children have been killed in the Gaza Strip since October 7, according to Gaza's government media office, amid widespread airstrikes by the Israeli military. Hundreds more are reported missing and may be trapped under the rubble. Since October 7, one child in Gaza has been killed every 10 minutes on average.

In the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel, at least 33 children were killed, and Palestinian armed groups abducted an estimated 40 children as hostages.

In the face of mounting violations against children, international rights advocates recently called on UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to immediately add Israeli forces, the al-Qassam Brigades (Hamas' armed wing), and Islamic Jihad to his "list of shame," rather than wait until his regular annual report next year. The "list of shame" names governments and nongovernmental armed groups responsible for grave violations against children in armed conflict, including killing and maiming, abduction, attacks on schools and hospitals, and denial of humanitarian access.

Guterres on November 6 said that "Gaza is becoming a graveyard for children." In the occupied West Bank, Israeli security forces and settlers have killed an additional 53 Palestinian children since October 7.

Israeli airstrikes have hit schools, hospitals, and ambulances in Gaza, resulting in civilian casualties. At least 300 schools have been damaged and 183 teachers killed. The World Health Organization has reported that at least 553 people have been killed in 178 attacks on medical facilities in Gaza between October 7 and November 21, and that the majority of hospitals in Gaza are no longer functional.

Israel's blockade of water, food, medical supplies, electricity and fuel, and denial of all but a trickle of humanitarian assistance into Gaza amounts to collective punishment of the civilian population that poses further grave risks to children.

Adding parties to the list will not immediately protect children, but is an important mechanism for accountability and requires parties to adopt concrete action plans to end their violations.

For years, the secretary-general has resisted adding Israel and Palestinian armed groups to his "list of shame." Now, he really has no choice.

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Israel/Gaza Hostilities Take Horrific Toll on Children

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An estimated 5,500 children have been killed in the Gaza Strip since October 7, according to Gaza's government media office, amid widespread airstrikes by the Israeli military. Hundreds more are reported missing and may be trapped under the rubble.

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More than 8,663 Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 7, according to the government media office, which added that thousands more are missing under the rubble amid relentless bombardment.

An overwhelming number of more than 21,000 people killed in the nearly three months of Israeli bombardment, which is the most destructive in recent history, have been civilians. Israel has repeatedly targeted schools and even neo-natal care centres were have not been spared, resulting in the killing of newborn babies.

According to Save the Children data in early November, a child was being killed every 10 minutes. The UN has called the besieged Palestinian enclave "a graveyard" for children due to the high casualty figures.

"Our gravest fears about the reported numbers of children killed becoming dozens, then hundreds, and ultimately thousands were realised in just a fortnight," James Elder, a spokesperson for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), said on October 31.

"Gaza has become a graveyard for thousands of children. It's a living hell for everyone else."

The Defence for Children International-Palestine, an NGO, said early last month that Israeli forces killed twice as many Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip in October as the total number of Palestinian children killed in the occupied West Bank and Gaza combined since 1967.

In nearly two years of the Russia-Ukraine war, 510 children were killed, which represents a little less than one child per day.

Last week, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) warned that limited access to clean water and sanitation amid Israel's relentless bombardment posed a grave risk to children in Gaza.

Displaced children in southern Gaza do not have enough water to meet their basic survival needs, the UN Children Agency's Executive Director Catherine Russell said.

"Without safe water, many more children will die from deprivation and disease in the coming days," Russel said.

In the southern city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of people - half of them estimated to be children - have fled since the beginning of December, water and sanitation situation systems are "in an extremely critical state", Russel added.

The water shortages have already contributed to 20 times the monthly average of cases of diarrhoea among children under the age of five, she said.

More than half a million people in Gaza - a quarter of the population - are starving, according to a report from the United Nations and other agencies released on Thursday.

Israel launched the brutal war in the wake of the Hamas attack that left some 1,139 people dead. The Palestinian resistance group also took some 240 people captive. Israel has pledged to continue its military offensive until what it calls the destruction of Hamas and the release of all the captives.

But its military tactics have been criticised for the widespread bombardment that has caused unprecedented destruction and loss of lives. Human rights organisations and UN agencies have spoken against Israel's collective punishment of the Palestinian people.

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Gaza dubbed 'a graveyard' for children as more than 8,000 children killed and thousands displaced by Israel's war.

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Realizing Children's Rights in Palestine

In 2013, the Committee on the Rights of the Child - referencing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -declared itself "highly concerned yet again by the fact that the children of both camps involved in the conflict continue to be killed or wounded, and the children living in the Palestinian-occupied territory represent a disproportionate number of these victims."

The State of Israel is responsible for enforcing the Convention on the Rights of the Child in Israel as well as in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. In fact, according to the International Court of Justice it is - as the occupying power - responsible for the human rights situation in Palestine as well. However, the Israeli state refuses to recognize this obligation. Consequentially, numerous child rights violations have taken place and remain unpunished.

Main problems faced by children in Palestine:

In the armed conflict between Israel and Palestine, many fatalities have been reported among Palestinian children, innocent victims often killed by mistake but sometimes callously shot by Israeli soldiers for no reason.

In the Gaza Strip where Israel declared war against Hamas, various Israeli confrontations and raids have resulted in the deaths of numerous children. The attacks often target public places that have turned into refuges for civilians, like schools, hospitals, etc. In addition to the lost lives, tens of thousands of children are injured and some are left disabled for life.

"Flashbacks, nightmares, agoraphobia: even children are not spared from the repercussions of war," UNICEF lamented after conducting a study about children living in the Gaza Strip. They are traumatized, with 88% afflicted by fear.

Hamas no longer hesitates to use Palestinian children from the Gaza Strip in active roles in its battle against Israel. For example, on one website, Hamas glorifies and persuades children to commit suicide to defend the Palestinian cause. With the slogan "death for God is victory," children are encouraged to actively engage in conflict at the cost of their protection and right to life.

Child victims of occupation
Additionally, the Palestinian occupation by Israel impacts children's everyday lives. Palestinian authorities are greatly dependent on international aid, financial resources are limited and public services are not up to standard. The wall - or fence in some places - zigzags through the West Bank, greatly affecting accessibility to education, water, health care and economic development for the country (see subsequent sections).

Moreover, reports from non-governmental organizations show that Israel has used force to suppress pro-Palestinian demonstrations, using tear gas and shooting into the crowd without hesitation, even where there are children. The Israel army has defined a stone as a dangerous projectile in the same category as a real bullet. So if a child throws a stone at an Israeli soldier, the latter can respond in force and the child can be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison.

Israeli restrictions on the free movement of people and goods are major obstacles for the Palestinian economy.

In 2012, the unemployment rate was 27% and according to recent statistics, 26% of Palestinians live below the poverty line.

In Gaza - the most impoverished area - one in two adolescents has the chance to work.

The effects of poverty on children's lives are numerous: their schooling often remains incomplete because they leave school at a very early age, usually to work and provide for the needs of their families. Early marriages of young girls and adolescent crime are both consequences of poverty.
Right to Education
In Palestine, approximately 70% of children go to primary school.

Access to education is difficult for children who live in refugee camps and villages that do not have a school.

According to a 2013 UNICEF study, more than 2,500 children within educated communities travel through at least one checkpoint per day to go to school - a situation that contributes to school dropouts and child labor.

Furthermore, the number of classes offered is insufficient, which leads to overcrowding, teaching is of the poorest quality and the schools lack resources and materials.

In Gaza, following Operation Cast Lead in 2012, many schools were damaged or destroyed. In 2013, more than 123,000 children had to discontinue their schooling according to UNICEF.
Right to Health Care
In Palestine, the infant mortality rate is seven times higher than that of Israel. Indeed, 22 ‰ of Palestinian children die before the age of five. The causes of this high infant mortality rate are varied: anemia, nutritional deficiencies or even severe malnutrition.

Access to health care services can prove extremely problematic in Palestine due to the presence of the wall and checkpoints. Testimonies have been recorded of cases where families found themselves blocked by the Israeli army when they wanted to go to a hospital for treatment of their sick children. Sometimes, if medical treatment is delayed, the outcome can be fatal. During the conflict, many hospitals or clinics were also destroyed, depriving children of their right to health.

Right to water
With water resources being very limited, hygiene is often marginalized in favor of satisfying vital necessities (eating and drinking). Otherwise, the consumption of non-potable water also leads to severe sicknesses in children (diarrhea, hepatitis, etc.).

In 2013 in the West Bank, more than one million Palestinians had to manage with approximately 60 liters of water per day per person, which is well below the 100 liters per day per person recommended by the United Nations.

In Gaza, 95% of the water is unsuitable for human consumption. It is so polluted that it is estimated the territory will have no more drinkable water by 2016, an effect that will be irreversible by 2020. The high level of nitrate (notably due to poor management of wastewater) is the source of many sicknesses that affect babies and children.
Child Marriages
Even though the legal age of maturity is fixed at 18 years old, child marriages are still commonly practiced in Palestine since one in ten girls are married between 15 and 19 years of age, with 2% of those marriages occurring before the girl is 15.

These marriages can have negative effects on young girls who do not know what the consequences are. In fact, more often than not, after getting married the girls must become wives by looking after the housework and their husband. Additionally, following these marriages the girls frequently become pregnant and have to then take care of their offspring, even though they are still children themselves.

Discrimination
Women and girls continue to be victims of discrimination. They are particularly affected by "honor killings." Even though these crimes are punishable under law, men often only serve a short sentence and the victims' cries for help fall on deaf ears.

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In the armed conflict between Israel and Palestine, many fatalities have been reported... Numerous child rights violations remain unpunished.