By Humaira Ahad
“God is our guardian while they have none,” a devastated father said in a graphic video as he held the tiny, headless body of his infant killed in an Israeli bombardment on a UNRWA clinic for displaced people in Jabalia, northern Gaza, on April 2.
The strike killed 19 people, nine of them children, raising the toll of child victims of the ongoing genocide that began in October 2023 and continues unabated nearly 19 months on.
In October 2023, the United Nations regarded Gaza as a graveyard for children. The death toll at that time was 3,450. Now, the number of children killed in Gaza stands at nearly 19,000, according to the official data. The unofficial figure is much higher.
Among the Palestinian children killed in Gaza, at least 274 were newborn babies, and at least 876 were infants below the age of one year, Gaza-based resistance movement Hamas said in a statement on the eve of Palestinian Children’s Day on Saturday, marked on April 5 every year.
Over 1,100 children have been abducted, and “around 39,000 have been orphaned by losing one or both parents, while thousands of others face the threat of famine, malnutrition, and disease,” the resistance group noted.
After a two-month ceasefire, which was marked by multiple breaches, the child-killing regime renewed its assault on innocent children in the besieged strip last month.
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, in a post on X, formerly Twitter, warned that the resumption of the war on Gaza is “robbing” Palestinian children of their childhood, turning the besieged territory into a “no land” for children.
Israel continued its bombardment even on the occasion of Eid-ul-Fitr, murdering Palestinian children who were excited to celebrate the festival after nearly two years of genocide.
Videos circulating on social media showed the lifeless bodies of children in new clothes and shoes. They had anticipated a day of festivities after the culmination of the month of fasting.
“Harrowing,” the UNRWA chief wrote on X. “At least 100 children are reported killed or injured every day in Gaza since the strikes resumed,” he said, citing UNICEF figures.
“Nothing justifies the killing of children.”
On Palestinian Children’s Day, Hamas called for the prosecution of Israel’s leaders for war crimes as the regime's genocidal war on Gaza continues with “systematic targeting of children.
Recently, a 350 GB file was released documenting Israel’s genocidal crimes in the besieged strip. The file consists of around 70,000 videos and images of Israel that show the regime mostly targets children ages 0-9 and women in the besieged coastal territory. The footage aligns perfectly with the figures released by the Ministry of Health in Gaza.
According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics statement, issued on April 3, at least 17,954 children have been killed in the Zionist regime’s attacks on the besieged strip, including 274 newborn babies and 876 infants below the age of one year.
The Palestinian Health Ministry recently released a 1,516-page document listing the names of over 50,000 Palestinians confirmed killed in Gaza since Oct 7, 2023. There are a total of 474 pages listing 15,600+ children’s names.
On the first 27 pages, the age is listed as 0, which means the children killed were less than 1 year old. At least 274 newborn babies and 876 babies who were not yet old enough to celebrate their first birthday were murdered by the Zionist regime.
According to the data provided by Palestinian rights organizations, Israel kills a child in Gaza every 45 minutes. That is an average of 30 children killed every day over the past 545 days.
Press TV correspondent in northern Gaza, Abubaker Abed, in a dispatch on Saturday, said his cousin's child was killed in an Israeli drone strike, adding that they are facing a tragedy that knows no bounds.
“I am the mourner, I am the griever”
Press TV's correspondent in Gaza @AbubakerAbedW reports that his cousin and he cousin's child were killed in an Israeli drone strike, saying that Gazans are facing a tragedy that doesn't know any things.
Israel’s renewed offensive in the besieged Palestinian strip has resulted in the cold-blooded murder of more than 350 children in less than two weeks.
According to a UNICEF statement issued on March 31, Israel has reportedly left at least 322 children dead and 609 wounded in the Palestinian territory in the past 10 days.
The figures include children who were reportedly killed or wounded when the surgical department of Al Nasser Hospital, in southern Gaza, was hit in an attack on March 23, the United Nations children's agency said in a statement.
UNICEF said most of these children were displaced and sheltering in makeshift tents or damaged homes.
Ending a nearly two-month fragile ceasefire, Israel resumed intense bombing of Gaza on March 18, followed by a new ground offensive.
According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, the devastating Israeli airstrike on Gaza in the early hours of March 18 killed at least 436 Palestinians, including 183 children, 94 women,
Mohammed was one of the 183 children killed in Israel's renewed bombardment of Gaza. His mother was also killed in the attack.
"She was seven months pregnant when she was killed,” Alaa Abu Hilal, Muhammad’s grief-stricken father, said.
Karam Tafeek Hameid lost his three sons in the Israeli attack on March 18. Hassan was nine, Mohammad was eight, and Aziz was just five.
"They used to play around, have fun, and most of all they loved to ride with me on my tuk-tuk," Hameid was quoted as saying amid sobs. Like other children, they had dreams; they “wanted to become doctors, teachers," the devastated father added.
Dr. Sakib Rokadiya, a British volunteer surgeon at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, said that he was shocked to see the number of children being targeted by Israel.
Dr Morgan McMonagle, an Irish trauma surgeon who is volunteering at Nasser Hospital in Gaza, estimated that 40 percent of the dead and injured he saw were children.
The UN Children and Armed Conflict reports show that the number of Palestinian children killed by the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza and the occupied West Bank over the last year is five times more than the number of children killed in Gaza between 2005 and 2022 in total.
The record number of women and children killed in Gaza does not include nearly 20,000 people who are either unidentified, missing, or entombed beneath rubble. Last year, a study published in The Lancet estimated the true number of deaths in Gaza could be over 186,000 and may include scores of children.
In its statement on April 5, Hamas urged “the United Nations and governments to criminalize the occupation (Israel) and activate its inclusion on the 'List of Shame' for perpetrators of crimes against children.”
Activists place children's shoes along a street in Washington DC to symbolize the 17,400+ Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces in Gaza.
On the eve of Palestinian Children’s Day on April 3, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics reported that 39,384 children in Gaza have lost one or both parents in Israel’s genocidal war on the besieged strip.
As per the statistics given by the bureau, around 17,000 children have been deprived of both parents in Israel’s genocidal war.
In January, the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported that since the start of the regime's war on Gaza, 32,151 children have lost their fathers, and 4,417 lost their mothers. However, the figures have increased in the past few months.
“These children are living in tragic conditions, with many forced to take refuge in torn tents or destroyed homes, in a near-total absence of social care and psychological support,” the statement noted. “The Gaza Strip is suffering from the largest orphan crisis in modern history.”
The statistics bureau warned that 60,000 children are at risk of death due to severe levels of malnutrition and looming famine.
In a report published last month, the Government Media Office in Palestine said that the Israeli occupying forces in Gaza have directly targeted 26 soup kitchens and bombed over 37 aid distribution centers since the beginning of the genocidal war on the coastal strip.
Israel has also tightened its brutal siege against Palestinians for nearly a month, blocking the entry of humanitarian and relief aid - including vital fuel trucks needed to maintain the bare minimum for survival in Gaza.
The Zionist regime has blocked 16,800 humanitarian aid trucks and 1,400 fuel trucks (diesel and cooking gas) from entering Gaza since the beginning of March, employing inhumane methods of warfare against helpless Palestinians.
Earlier this week, Gaza’s Government Media Office said that the Israeli regime is applying a policy of “systematic starvation” by halting the entry of aid and flour for an entire month, forcing bakeries to shut down. Paper signs now hang in bakeries, reading “Closed until further notice.”
The lives of scores of children who have lost everything in Israel’s genocidal war have been reduced to finding firewood and flour or anything to eat. A childhood that calls for play and a carefree life without fear is spent in hospitals, ration lines, and graveyards for the children in Gaza.
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