Children are bearing the brunt of the horrors in Gaza. How can this go on?

ABC News/John Lyons/12.2.2024

The most dangerous place in the world to be a child.

That devastating description is now being applied to Gaza by UNICEF as the true extent of the catastrophe of this war emerges.

That devastation is leading to one of the worst humanitarian crises of our time – where, for example, a nurse has had to perform emergency caesarean operations on six dead pregnant women to try to save their babies.

The horrors of Gaza are almost unspeakable. As difficult as all this is to read and to watch, it’s important the world does not look away.

Rarely, if ever, have so many children been killed, injured or orphaned as quickly as Israel is doing so in Gaza right now.

“The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child,” says UNICEF’s James Elder. “And day after day, that brutal reality is reinforced.”

UNICEF has compiled a range of statistics from Gaza. It says that a Palestinian child is killed every 15 minutes. Thousands more are missing under rubble.

One of every 10 children killed in Gaza did not make their first birthday. More than 1,000 children have lost one or both legs. Save the Children estimates that more than 10 children a day are losing one or both legs — those having limbs amputated are having it done without anaesthetic.

Australia expresses concern for fate of civilians in city of Rafah in Gaza

On the testimony of a range of credible agencies, this is the deadliest conflict for children in modern times.

According to UNICEF, there are now at least 19,000 orphans in Gaza and thousands who have lost one parent.

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, at least 28,000 Palestinians have been killed — including 11,500 children.

Gaza has more children than almost anywhere else — 47.3 per cent of its population is under 18. The Health Ministry says there are at least 65,636 injured people in Gaza – of which 18,000 are children.

Israel’s newspaper Haaretz ran the headline: “11,500 Children Have Been Killed in Gaza. Horror of This Scale Has No Explanation.”

Data challenging Israel’s supporters

Save the Children and UNICEF believe that in the early weeks of this war, Israel was killing about 1,000 children a week. This gruesome reality is challenging world leaders – the latest from Israel’s strongest supporter, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Few people have been as supportive of Israel as Blinken or President Joe Biden. For Biden, a public turning point from unconditional support for Israel came when he concluded that Israel’s bombing was “indiscriminate.”

Blinken is now warning that if the Israeli army pushes into Rafah, the southernmost town in Gaza, there’s the risk of a huge number of more civilian deaths. He warned there was now up to 1.4 million people crowding into Rafah.

Netanyahu rejects deal for Gaza ceasefire and hostage release

Interestingly, after a day of meeting Israeli officials, Blinken held a news conference without Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

So, while Netanyahu held a news conference in the early evening rejecting Hamas’ ceasefire offer and declaring that Israel would push into Rafah, Blinken later held one expressing his alarm at any Israeli push into Rafah.