Children of Gaza: UN Black-listed Israel Continues Atrocities on Innocents

Killing and maiming, targeted attacks on schools and hospitals, denials of humanitarian access—these are some of the war crimes criteria set by the United Nations Security Council against children. In the last ten months, Israel has tickeck all these boxes.

But, what’s staggering is that, though the world sees its heinous genocide against the Palestinian future today, a version camouflaged form of this ethnic cleansing has been going on for decades.

Under the zionist occupation, children in Gaza and even the entire Palestine rarely had access to basic rights. Now, however, with nothing to hide, the Israeli military is committing every single war crime and more—and there are still governments supporting and funding this one-sided genocide in the name of “protecting its sovereignty”.

Children Deliberately Shot by Israeli Forces

Children account for one-third of more than 39,000 people killed in Gaza – according to the Palestinian health ministry. A lot more have suffered severe injuries, including burns and amputations. And while Israel is trying to brush these deaths and injuries as collateral damage, how can the military justify deliberate gunshot wounds to the head or chest to children as young as seven?

In an interview with CBS Sunday Morning, Dr. Mark Perlmutter, an Orthopedic Surgeon from North Carolina who volunteered in Gaza’s conflict zones in the first few weeks of April, revealed the distressing reality. This is a reality that has only worsened since April, given the Rafah, al-Mawasi, and attack on another humanitarian zone in southern Gaza.

He said that his 30 years of working in conflict zones doesn’t equal to the “level of carnage seen against civilians” in just his first week in Gaza. Dr. Perlmutter further discloses that hospitals are filled with incinerated and shredded children(by explosions or crushed by buildings).

“I’ve had children who were shot twice”

Dr Perlmutter

Children are being shot with dead-center shots. The reports confirmed this with over twenty more doctors currently aiding in Gaza about the continued shooting directed towards children.

“…I didn’t believe that this many children could be admitted to a single hospital with gunshot wounds to the head…”

Widespread Diseases in the Displaced and Distressed Children of Gaza

The lack of food, clean water, sanitation, and medical supplies is forming new challenges for the children saved from bombardment and military assaults. Lice, scabies, and rashes are plaguing the Gazan children as skin and other infectious diseases run rampant in humanitarian tent camps.

According to the World Health Organization, doctors in Gaza are wrestling with 103,000 cases of lice and scabies and 65,000 cases of skin rashes. Whereas in the 2.3 million population, over a million are suffering from acute respiratory infections, along with 100,000 cases of jaundice and half a million with acute diarrhea- according to the United Nations Development Program.

Due to the appalling conditions in overcrowded tent camps with dirty water, garbage everywhere, and limited or no sanitary products, controlling the spread is nearly impossible. With make-shift homes crammed with children, if one child gets a disease, “it spreads to all of them,” says Nahhal, a Gazan mother surviving in the war zone.

Attack on Schools and Hospitals

On Sunday, 4th August, an Israeli airstrike hit two schools in Gaza, killing at least 30 people and taking hostage in the building. Earlier in the day, the Al-Aqsa hospital compound was attacked, which left over 18 people wounded and five Gazans deceased.

These are another attack in the queue of bombardments and military insertions in schools and hospitals. The Israeli military says—without providing any evidence—that Hamas is using schools and hospitals as hiding places and command centers for terrorist operations.

Gaza: The Most Dangerous Place to Be a Child

At the start of the war, the United Nations said that Gaza was a “graveyard for children.” Now, however, the situation is far worse than imaginable, for nearly 1.1 million children surviving in the most dangerous place in the world.

War crimes, rampant diseases, constant bombardment, and widespread hopelessness—this is the reality of Gazans, adults and children alike. In the past ten months of the war, more than 1.8 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million population have lost their homes. Many of them were even forced to move multiple times to get away from the military assaults.

All this when the distribution of humanitarian supplies, including food, water, and medicines, is dwindling—given the lawlessness in Gaza and Israeli military attacks on aid vehicles.

“Growing up should be a time of hope, not horror,” yet for the one million children in Gaza, hope is nowhere to be found. Day after day, horrific atrocities on Gazan children continue to dominate headlines, but still, they are not getting the attention and safety they deserve.