Are there any of the wounded whom you remember in particular?
"From a medical point of view, I remember a boy of maybe 12 or 13 years old, who arrived with bleeding from his eye, from being hit by shrapnel. It was clear that he needed surgery, but there was a two-hour line for the operating room. During the wait, a main artery burst inside his brain and blood began spurting from his eye. I'd never seen anything like that before. He died, of course.

"From a humanitarian point of view, I remember a boy about 2 years old who was seriously hurt by a bomb. He arrived together with many other children who had been in the same house. The moment I saw him I knew we would not be able to save him, so I had to give the only oxygen canister that was available to another wounded child, who had a better chance of surviving. He was alone, with no one by his side as he was dying. I took a picture of him with the phone and went out to see if anyone knew his relatives. I was told that his whole family was buried under the ruins, and that he was the only one who had been pulled out. I decided that this child would not die without someone noticing and crying over him, and I realized that it would have to be me. I held him to me, I cried over him and I named him 'Jacob.' I vowed that if I have a son, I will name him 'Jacob' in his memory.

"Another case I remember is of three siblings – a 10-year-old boy, a 6-year-old girl and a baby boy of one and a half. According to what I was told, they had been in a house that was surrounded by Hamas activity. Israeli soldiers entered the house at night. In the dark, they thought the father was a Hamas operative and they killed him. The mother ran toward the father and she was killed too. The two parents lay there dead, but outside there was bombing taking place. The three children lay down on their parents until the sun came up. Not until morning did people come to take them out of the house. Someone brought them to the hospital.
"I remember that the eldest son held the little one and calmed him because he was crying, and at the same time took care of his sister, who didn't stop shaking like a leaf in a storm. They were covered with their parents' blood. We cleaned them and I brought them some toys and small dolls that my daughter had asked me to give to the children in Gaza. When I gave them the toys, I saw a small smile and they said to me, 'Thank you, Uncle David.' You could see that they were educated and polite children. I was relieved to learn that at some point a relative came and took them. I will never forget them – the thought of the shocking night they went through and the way the 10-year-old, the senior among them, suddenly became a parental figure."

NEW YORK, 06 MAY 2024 – With the unfolding humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip continuing to deteriorate, UNICEF is warning that a military besiegement and ground incursion in Rafah would pose catastrophic risks to the 600,000 children currently taking shelter in the enclave.

Following October evacuation orders to move to the south, it is estimated that there are now about 1.2 million people sheltering in Rafah, once home to about 250,000 people. As a result, Rafah (20,000 people per km2) is almost twice as densely populated as New York City (11,300 people per km2), and about half the population is children, many of whom have been displaced multiple times and are sheltering in tents or informal and unstable housing.

Given the high concentration of children in Rafah – including many who are highly vulnerable and at the edge of survival – as well as the likely intensity of the violence, with potential evacuation corridors likely mined or littered with unexploded ordnance; and shelter and services in areas for relocation very likely to be limited – UNICEF is warning of a further catastrophe for children, with military operations resulting in very high civilian casualties and the few remaining basic services and infrastructure they need to survive being totally destroyed.

“More than 200 days of war have taken an unimaginable toll on the lives of children,” said Catherine Russell, UNICEF Executive Director. “Rafah is now a city of children, who have nowhere safe to go in Gaza. If large scale military operations start, not only will children be at risk from the violence, but also from chaos and panic, and at a time where their physical and mental states are already weakened.”

Compared to adults, children are especially vulnerable to the devastating impacts of the war in the Gaza Strip. They are being disproportionately killed and injured, and suffering more acutely from disruptions to healthcare and education and a lack of access to sufficient food and water. Already, more than 14,000 children have been reportedly killed in this current conflict, according to the latest estimate by the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of children in Rafah are estimated to have a disability, medical condition or other vulnerability that puts them in even greater jeopardy from the looming military operations in the city:

about 65,000 children are estimated to have a pre-existing disability, including difficulties seeing, hearing, walking, understanding, and learning.
about 78,000 children are infants under 2 years of age;
almost 8,000 children under 2 years of age are acutely malnourished;
about 175,000 children under 5 years of age – or 9 in 10 – are affected by one or more infectious diseases;
almost all children are already in need of mental health and psychosocial support.
Many of these vulnerabilities are not mutually exclusive, meaning that the same child could be both injured and sick, or malnourished and an infant.

“Hundreds of thousands of children who are now cramped into Rafah are injured, sick, malnourished, traumatized, or living with disabilities,” said Russell. “Many have been displaced multiple times, and have lost homes, parents and loved ones. They need to be protected along with the remaining services that they rely on, including medical facilities and shelter.”

UNICEF reiterates the call of the Interagency Standing Committee for Israel ‘to fulfil its legal obligation, under international humanitarian and human rights law, to provide food and medical supplies and facilitate aid operations, and on the world’s leaders to prevent an even worse catastrophe from happening.’

Underscoring the special vulnerabilities of children, UNICEF is also calling for:

An immediate and long-lasting humanitarian ceasefire. The immediate release of hostages, and an end to any grave violations against all children.
The protection of civilians and the infrastructure that supports their basic needs, such as hospitals and shelters, from attack and military use;
Continued protection of children and their families if they are unable or unwilling to move following an evacuation order - people should be allowed to move freely to safer areas, but they should never be forced to do so.
Safe and consistent access for humanitarian organisations and personnel to reach children and their families with life-saving aid, wherever they are in the Gaza Strip.
- ENDs -

Note to editor:

The data point on children with disabilities is based on results from the 2019-2020 Palestinian Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS). This is the latest available MICS survey for the Gaza Strip and does not reflect any changes of this indicator that might have occurred since; nevertheless, it represents a valid lower bound of the incidence of children with disability.

With an exceptionally large turnout, Saturday's protests are taking place across Israel's major cities; Protesters are also demanding early elections. At a rally in Jerusalem, the father of Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin said: Politicians must remember, we are fighting for real people

The main demonstration, calling for early elections, is taking place in Kaplan Junction in Tel Aviv, and thousands are participating in it. Alongside it, a gathering organized by the Hostages Forum at the so-called Hostage Square at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.

Several families of hostages, who have announced they will release an emergency statement today at 20:30 Israel time as a response to Israel saying it won't agree to end the war in exchange for a deal that would return all the hostages, have spoken in the Tel Aviv demonstration.

"There is now a deal on the table, that Hamas has signaled it will agree to. But Netanyahu, after Hamas' signals, is once again trying to blow the deal, when he announces twice today while hiding under the guise of a 'top political source,' that Israel won't agree to ending the war. Netanyahu is once again trying to torpedo the only chance we have to save the hostages," said Einav Zangauker, whose son is held at the strip, on behalf of the forum.Danny Elgarat, whose brother Itzhak is held in Gaza, has spoken at the rally on Begin Road in Tel Aviv, and addressed Prime Minister Netanyahu. "Bibi, you can't fool us. You're stalling to please Ben-Gvir and stay in power. You don't care about the 132 hostages," he said.

"Entering Rafah is a death sentence for the hostages ... you can't stay the prime minister with the blood of 132 hostages on your hands," Elgarat added.

This week, we are restarting our operations at scale: We have 276 trucks, representing almost 8 million meals, ready to enter Gaza through the Rafah crossing in the south. We are also sending trucks from Jordan as we push to distribute food into northern Gaza, where the situation is most dire.

We expect and insist that the Israel Defense Forces protect and respect the lives and work of our Palestinian team members, just like citizens from other nations.

That sort of treatment has been rare since we have been in the region. For example, though every team member is vetted and cleared before every food delivery mission, our Palestinian team members have been stripped and humiliated by Israeli soldiers while engaged in work that has been coordinated with, and approved by, the IDF.

Our convoys have been held up at IDF checkpoints for hours on end, despite coordination with the Israeli government groups who run point on humanitarian aid.

My hope and my prayer are that the names of our seven heroes will be remembered and mourned in Israel, as they are in Gaza, Britain, Canada, Australia and Poland.

Sharing our grief is as human as sharing our food. It’s a small step toward healing and hope in a world that desperately needs both.

Apparently, Columbia University’s president, Nemat Shafik, does not share my view. Last week she prostrated herself before House Republicans, promising that she would discipline professors and students for protesting the ongoing slaughter in Gaza in which some 34,000 people have died, most of them women and children.

The following day she summoned the New York City Police Department to arrest more than 100 students who were engaging in a peaceful protest against it.

Can we be clear about a few things? Protesting this slaughter is not expressing antisemitism. It is not engaging in hate speech. It is not endangering Jewish students. It is doing what should be done on a college campus — taking a stand against a perceived wrong, at least provoking discussion and debate.

My experience yesterday at Columbia University stands in stark contrast to the portrayal of the Columbia protests and the protestors by the mass media and several elected officials. In truth, the encampment demonstration is not only peaceful but also profoundly impactful, showing how the diversity of ideas among our youth can foster global peace if embraced wholeheartedly; not stamped out by force or rhetoric.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli strikes on the southern Gaza city of Rafah overnight killed 22 people, including 18 children, health officials said Sunday, as the United States was on track to approve billions of dollars of additional military aid to Israel, its close ally.

Israel has carried out near-daily air raids on Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has sought refuge from fighting elsewhere. It has also vowed to expand its ground offensive against the Hamas militant group to the city on the border with Egypt despite international calls for restraint, including from the U.S.

SNIP

The first Israeli strike in Rafah killed a man, his wife and their 3-year-old child, according to the nearby Kuwaiti Hospital, which received the bodies. The woman was pregnant and the doctors saved the baby, the hospital said. The second strike killed 17 children and two women from an extended family.

“These children were sleeping. What did they do? What was their fault?” asked one relative, Umm Kareem. Another relative, Umm Mohammad, said the oldest killed, an 80-year-old aunt, was taken out “in pieces.” Small children were zipped into body bags.

Mohammed al-Beheiri said his daughter, Rasha, and her six children, the youngest 18 months old, were among those killed. A woman and three children were still under the rubble.