More than 340 Palestinian children have been killed in Gaza since a ceasefire was announced just over a year ago, the UN children’s agency said on Friday.
In the past two weeks alone, five boys and two girls were reported killed and at least 33 children seriously injured in Israeli air strikes, drone strikes and gunfire across the Strip. Two more boys died of earlier injuries.
“Those terrible statistics do not equate with a ceasefire as most would imagine one,” Unicef spokesperson Ricardo Pires told reporters in Geneva.
Pires said some 800,000 Palestinian children remain displaced, most living in tents or damaged buildings.
An estimated 60,000 have lost one or both parents, and nearly all need some form of mental health support.
He warned that children now face a fourth winter in dire conditions. All six of Gaza’s wastewater treatment plants are out of service, and most raw sewage is pumped into the sea.
Pires said the Sheikh Radwan stormwater basin, which is half full, risks overflowing into residential areas when the winter rains arrive.
It could be drained within two weeks, he said, but Israel has not allowed the necessary equipment into Gaza.
He urged Israeli authorities to allow in materials, spare parts, generators and fuel to restore essential services, and to uphold the ceasefire.
“Gaza’s children have suffered far too much, for far too long,” he said.