Gaza: ‘Over 600,000 Children – Half of the Displaced Population – Are Trapped in Rafah. There Is Nowhere Safe for Them to Go’
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UNICEF Appeal: Children in Gaza need life-saving support
(UNICEF)* — The escalation of hostilities in the Gaza Strip is having a catastrophic impact on children and families. Children are dying at an alarming rate – thousands have been killed and thousands more injured.
Around 1.7 million people in the Gaza Strip are estimated to have been internally displaced – half of them children. They do not have enough access to water, food, fuel and medicine. Their homes have been destroyed; their families torn apart.
Even wars have rules. No child should be cut off from essential services, nor fall from the reach of humanitarian hands. No child should be held hostage or used by any means in armed conflict.
Hospitals and schools must be protected from bombings, and they must not be used for military purposes, in accordance with international humanitarian law. The cost to children and their communities of this violence will be borne out for generations to come.
UNICEF continues to press world leaders on every occasion for humanitarian access to the whole of Gaza.
To respond to the situation for children in Israel and the State of Palestine, UNICEF is calling for:
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An immediate and long-lasting humanitarian ceasefire.
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Safe and unrestricted humanitarian access to and within the Gaza Strip to reach affected populations wherever they are, including in the north. All access crossings must be opened including for sufficient fuel and materials needed to run and rehabilitate essential infrastructure and commercial supplies. Safe movement for humanitarian workers and supplies across the Gaza Strip must be guaranteed and reliable telecommunications networks made available to coordinate response efforts.
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The immediate, safe and unconditional release of all abducted children, and an end to any grave violations against all children, including killing and maiming of children.
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Respect and protection for civilian infrastructure such as shelters and schools, and health, electric, water, sanitation and telecommunications facilities, to prevent loss of civilian and children’s lives, outbreaks of diseases, and to provide care to the sick and wounded. All parties to the conflict must respect international humanitarian law.
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Urgent medical cases in Gaza to be able to safely access critical health services or be allowed to leave, and for injured or sick children evacuated to be accompanied by family members.
Even before the current crisis, children in the State of Palestine had grown up under the shadow of recurrent violence and crushing poverty.
Now, children in the Gaza Strip face the deadly effects of disease and malnutrition as escalating hostilities cut them off from safe water, food and medicine.
For the 600,000 children – roughly half of the displaced population – who fled to Rafah, another threat looms. The imminent possibility of bombing has followed families to the place they sought safety, and there is nowhere else for children to go.
Children and their families have come under attack in the places they should be safest – their homes, shelters, hospitals and places of worship.
Since the escalation, thousands of children have been injured and killed. Children have been reporting to hospitals with severe burns, injuries that required amputation and have left open wounds and other serious injuries.
And through it all, children remain cut off from psychosocial care. Before this latest escalation, more than 500,000 children in Gaza were identified as needing mental health and psychosocial support.
Today, every child has been exposed to deeply distressing events and trauma, marked by widespread destruction and displacement. Meanwhile, parents and caregivers are themselves under intense mental strain.
Water production capacity has plummeted to just a fraction of its normal output with many water, sanitation and hygiene facilities damaged or destroyed.
People have lost reliable access to safe water, toilets and washing facilities and displaced children and their families are unable to maintain the necessary hygiene levels needed to prevent disease and chronic diarrhoea – a leading killer of young children in all emergencies.
Already, reported cases of diarrhoea among children under the age of 5 are soaring, while cases of scabies, lice, chicken pox, skin rashes and respiratory infections are also climbing.
The very few functioning hospitals are so focused on responding to the high number of patients injured in the conflict that they are unable to adequately treat disease outbreaks.
Supplies of nutritious food have virtually run out, and for many families in Gaza, the threat of dying from hunger is already real. The violence has also shut down lifesaving prevention, screening and treatment services for malnutrition that were previously reaching hundreds of thousands of children.
When combined and left untreated, malnutrition and disease create a deadly cycle. Evidence has shown that children with poor health and nutrition are more vulnerable to serious infections. Without sufficient nutritious food, children will quickly become malnourished and child wasting, the most life-threatening form of malnutrition in children, could soar.
UNICEF is particularly worried about the nutrition of pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers, as well as children under two, given their specific nutrition needs and vulnerability.
UNICEF continues to focus on the critical needs of children for protection and humanitarian assistance – but access remains difficult and dangerous.
UNICEF staff, along with our United Nations and civil society partners, remain in Gaza but must be allowed to provide life-saving aid at scale, especially where access is most constrained.
UNICEF has dispatched emergency supplies including water, life-saving medicines and equipment, but much more is needed to meet the immense needs of civilians.
For more on UNICEF’s humanitarian response, access the latest State of Palestine situation reports.
Source: https://human-wrongs-watch.net/2024/03/04/gaza-over-600000-children-half-of-the-displaced-population-are-trapped-in-rafah-there-is-nowhere-safe-for-them-to-go/
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