About 40% of Gaza’s population, approximately one million people, are children under 14 years of age. Minors who have lived their entire lives in a region that has accumulated 17 years of blockade and extreme violence, which makes them a particularly vulnerable group. A situation that has been terribly worsened since the war between Israel and Hamas broke out on October 7.
According to the latest available data, of the nearly 4,500 victims recorded in the Gaza Strip, more than 70% are minors. The NGO Save the Children estimates that, currently, a Gazan child dies every 15 minutes.
In Israel, official sources have not yet confirmed the numbers of child victims, although it is known that they have been seriously affected. Likewise, there is information suggesting the existence of children among those kidnapped and taken to Gaza as hostages.
To respond to this serious situation, organizations such as Unicef ??are calling for the opening of all border crossings with the Palestinian enclave to allow sustained access to supplies, essential services and humanitarian workers, as well as respect for civil infrastructure, such as shelters, health facilities. , electrical, water and sanitation.
Only two of the 20 trucks that entered the Gaza Strip yesterday through the Rafah crossing were carrying shipments of water, which will supply only 22,000 people for one day, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef).
In a statement, the organization detailed that it had supplied “more than 44,000 bottles of drinking water” through the convoy of 20 trucks organized by the Egyptian Red Moon, the World Health Organization and the World Food Programme, although it specified that this amount is only “enough for 22,000 people for one day.”
“With one million children in Gaza now facing a critical humanitarian and protection crisis, water supply is a matter of life and death. Every minute counts,” UNICEF Executive Director said in a statement. Catherine Russell.
In the note, the organization warned of the urgent need to provide “not only water, but also food, fuel, medicine and essential goods and services” to serve 1.4 million people, almost two thirds of the 2.2 million who live in the Strip, who have been displaced by Israel’s attacks on the Palestinian enclave since last October 7.
“Much of Gaza’s infrastructure, including critical water and sanitation systems, has been reduced to rubble in almost two weeks of escalating violence,” UNICEF said, noting that “water production capacity is at 5 % of normal levels, and Gaza’s nearly 2.3 million people now survive on 3 liters of water per person per day.”
Faced with this situation, Unicef ??assured that it has prepared additional emergency supplies for up to 250,000 people at the Rafah border crossing, which can enter Gaza “in a matter of hours”, although it is unknown when and under what conditions it will reopen.
Health services in the Gaza Strip, besieged for two weeks by Israel, have detected cases of chickenpox, scabies and diarrhea caused by poor hygienic conditions and the consumption of water from unsanitary sources, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warned today. from the ONU.
In its daily report on the situation in Gaza, the United Nations expresses its fear that these cases will increase unless electricity returns to the strip, completely cut off by Israel for 11 days, or more fuel can arrive to power generators.
The report warns that some Palestinians are forced to consume salt water from agricultural wells, which could cause cholera outbreaks and pose health risks such as a possible increase in hypertension levels, especially in babies and pregnant women. and people with kidney problems.
The United Nations raises the number of deaths in Gaza since October 7 to 4,385 (285 of them in the last few hours), among them at least 1,756 children and 967 women, with 13,561 injured.
In the West Bank, protests and clashes with Israeli settlers since Hamas terrorist attacks began the wave of hostilities have caused 84 deaths and 1,653 injuries, always according to the daily report of the United Nations office.
The percentage of residential buildings in Gaza affected by the attacks has already risen to 42%: 139,000 have suffered minor or moderate damage, 15,100 are completely destroyed and 10,600 have been left uninhabitable due to structural problems.
The number of people displaced by the hostilities remains at 1.4 million, almost two-thirds of the total population of Gaza: according to the United Nations, some 566,000 are staying in shelters managed by the UN itself, and another 700,000 in relatives’ homes.
The World Health Organization (WHO) currently reports 62 attacks on health facilities, and increases the number of hospitals that have had to stop their operations to seven (at the beginning of the week there were four).
According to the report, the Israeli forces have ordered the evacuation of the 17 hospitals that still operate in Gaza City (capital of the homonymous strip), as well as one in Rafah, but they have not complied with the order, considering that this could put endangering the lives of some patients.
