Relief agencies warns ‘tragic, avoidable surge’ of child deaths in Gaza

Anjali Sharma

GG News Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, 22nd Nov. UN aid agencies on Tuesday warned that a “tragic entirely avoidable surge” in child deaths is expected in Gaza where 160 youngsters are being killed every day, after six weeks of aerial bombardment by Israeli forces in response to 7 October Hamas terror attacks on southern Israel that claimed 1,400 lives and some 240 hostages taken to Gaza.

WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said that “About 160 children are killed every day; that’s one every 10 minutes,” echoed those concerns by the UNICEF about the serious additional threat of a mass disease outbreak in Gaza.

UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said “If youngsters continue to have restricted access to water and sanitation in Gaza, we will see a tragic yet entirely avoidable surge in the number of children dying.”

He noted that over 5,350 Palestinian children had been killed, according to the health authorities in Gaza.

“The death toll among children is sickening,” Mr. Elder said.

“Grief is becoming embedded in Gaza. So this then is a stark warning: without sufficient fuel, without sufficient water, conditions for children will plummet.”

He added that at least 30 Israeli children are still being held hostage “somewhere in this hell escape”, before appealing for their immediate release, to spare them “their fear (and) the torment” their families have endured.

Mr. Lindmeier explained that “every 10 minutes, two children are injured”, while youngsters and their families caught up in the conflict have been dying “in terrifying circumstances”.

According to the WHO around 180 babies are born every day in Gaza.

Over 20 of them need specialized care, just like the infants from Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, where 31 premature and low-birthweight babies in intensive care were evacuated over the weekend.

The original number of infants was 33 but two died “because of the lack of care available to them,” Mr. Lindmeier said.

He highlighted the dire situation all over Gaza where “less than half” of the enclave’s hospitals and clinics now function “in any capacity”, said that plans were continuing to evacuate 200 patients and 50 health workers from Al-Shifa hospital, as a desperate, last resort.

“When these people the doctors, the nurses, the patients are asking to be evacuated, that’s really the last resort,” he said.

He added that it meant “that the situation on the ground has grown so dire that the only other alternative is facing what they think certain death”.

He explained that such evacuations were extremely complicated and dangerous, requires coordination with Israeli Defense Forces and with Hamas “to get to a safer place inside Gaza”.

Mr. Lindmeier said the evacuation teams will “need time, they need preparation, they need specialized equipment, they need safe passage”.

According to the WHO Gaza is home to thousands of injured and critically ill people. There has been a sharp increase in diseases such as diarrhoea, and respiratory infections, along with “almost no water, fuel, food, electricity, or medical supplies”.

Some 72,000 cases of upper respiratory infections have been reported in displacement shelters with close to 49,000 cases of diarrhoea and over half of these among children under age five. This compares with a pre-war monthly average of 2,000 cases in 2021, 2022.