The executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has described the situation in the Gaza Strip as “devastating” amid Israel’s ongoing aggression, warning that the regime’s brutal assault has left "nowhere safe" for the enclave’s one million children.
Catherine Russell made the remarks in a statement released on the agency’s website on Wednesday following her visit to Gaza.
"Today I visited the Gaza Strip to meet with children, their families, and UNICEF staff. What I saw and heard was devastating. They have endured repeated bombardment, loss, and displacement. Inside the Strip, there is nowhere safe for Gaza’s one million children to turn," Russel said.
The UNICEF chief went on to say that more than 4,600 children have reportedly been killed, with nearly 9,000 injured in Gaza, adding that "Many children are missing and believed buried under the rubble of collapsed buildings and homes” due to Israeli strikes in populated areas.
She further noted that newborns in need of specialized care have died in one of Gaza’s hospitals as power and medical supplies run out due to the criminal blockade imposed by the Israeli regime.
Russell also said that in the neonatal ward of Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, “tiny babies were clinging to life in incubators, as doctors worried how they could keep the machines running without fuel."
Elsewhere in her remarks, Russell warned that “The intermittent opening of Gaza’s border crossings to shipments of humanitarian supplies is insufficient to meet the skyrocketing needs,” adding that with winter around the corner, the need for fuel could become even more acute.
She also reiterated her call to ensure that children are protected and assisted, as per international humanitarian law, and to implement an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the blockaded territory.
Israel waged the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm into the occupied territories in response to the occupying regime’s intensified crimes against the Palestinian people.
According to the Gaza-based health ministry, at least 11,250 Palestinians have been killed in the strikes, most of them women and children, and more than 29,000 others have been injured in the Israeli strikes.
Tel Aviv has also imposed a “complete siege” on Gaza, cutting off fuel, electricity, food, and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.
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