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save the children
'There Is No Safety for Us': West Bank Kids Under Growing Assault by Israeli Forces
"These children deserve better," said one mother. "They deserve to be children, not to live in constant fear of raids and shootings."
Sep 17, 2024
An average of five children per day have been killed or wounded by Israeli occupation forces and settler-colonists in the West Bank of Palestine, according to a report published Tuesday by Save the Children, which sounded the alarm on what it called a "significant escalation of violence in the past six weeks."
According to the charity, Israeli forces have killed 158 Palestinian children in the West Bank between October 7 and August 14. At least 1,400 other children have been injured. The majority of those killed—115 children—were shot, while others have been killed by Israeli aerial bombing and drone strikes.
"We must not allow violence against children to become normalized or accepted as inevitable."
Child casualties have increased significantly since Israel launched a major offensive in the northern West Bank on August 28.
One 12-year-old girl from the Tulkarem refugee camp described what it was like to experience an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) raid.
"I felt a lot of fear because of the airstrikes and shootings," she said. "By the third day, I was even more scared because the Israeli forces raided our home. They barged in, screaming, and my mum tried to speak to them, but they swarmed the house and searched every room. We were so afraid of them."
"There is no safety for us," she added. "At any moment they might come back and at any moment they go—we don't know."
The girl's mother told Save the Children that IDF troops "gathered at night, began the raid, and stayed a long time here and raided our home, terrorizing the kids, separating them, frightening them."
"They blew up the door," she continued. "My little girl couldn't control herself and wet herself. [She] was standing, shaking in the corner. They pointed their guns at me."
"The children are constantly afraid, deprived of the simplest things," she added. "Their mental health is deteriorating. These children deserve better. They deserve to be children, not to live in constant fear of raids and shootings."
Save the Children said that "since last October there has been an increase in the arbitrary arrest, detention, and abuse of children in the Israeli military detention system, more forced displacement of families, demolition of homes, and a sharp rise in violent attacks by Israeli settlers."
Jeremy Stoner, the charity's Middle East regional director, stressed that "these actions are not isolated incidents; they are part of a trend of increasing Israeli military operations and use of force that are systematically eroding the safety, security, and fundamental rights of Palestinian children, who are paying the highest price in this escalating violence."
"Every day, children are killed, injured, or left severely distressed, and their families are left grieving unimaginable losses," he continued. "This environment deprives children of essential services and even the basic security of their homes, ripping away their sense of safety when they need it most."
"We must not allow violence against children to become normalized or accepted as inevitable," Stoner added. "We need urgent and decisive action to protect children across the West Bank and to stop this becoming their increasing reality."
Israel's offensive began just weeks after the International Court of Justice (ICJ)—where Israel is also on trial for genocide in Gaza—declared the country's 57-year occupation of the West Bank an illegal form of apartheid that must end immediately. Instead, Israel launched the largest campaign in the territory in decades.
According to the most recent United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs situation report, Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed 546 Palestinians and injured at least 5,669 others in the West Bank since October 7. Since January 2023, 772 West Bank Palestinians have been killed and more than 14,600 were wounded. Over that same period, Palestinians have killed 41 Israelis including eight children and wounded 278 others.
Meanwhile in Gaza, Israeli forces have killed or wounded more than 146,000 Palestinians since October 7, when the IDF began a "complete siege" and relentless bombardment, followed by a ground invasion, that displaced almost all of the embattled enclave's 2.3 million people while starving and sickening many others.
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Report From Gaza Aid Agencies Shows 'Catastrophe on an Entirely New Level'
"In Gaza, we are not witnessing a 'shrinking' humanitarian space; there is barely any space left to operate at all," the report authors said.
Jul 31, 2024
Israeli attacks on relief workers and designated "humanitarian zones" in Gaza, as well its tight control over borders and repeated evacuation orders, have devastated the ability to deliver much-needed aid to residents of the beleaguered strip, 20 non-governmental organizations warned in a report released Tuesday.
Israel has now issued "evacuation orders" that cover 86% of the Gaza Strip's land area, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). This means that Gaza's 2.1 million people are now expected to squeeze into only 14% of Gaza's 141 square miles.
"We are doing everything we can to save children's lives in Gaza, but our job becomes more and more challenging by the day," said Jeremy Stoner, the Middle East regional director of Save the Children, one of the organizations behind the report. "Forcibly displacing civilians into areas that cannot accommodate them is causing a humanitarian catastrophe on an entirely new level."
"What is the international community doing about this humanitarian crisis?"
Between July 22 and 27 alone, Israeli "evacuation orders" forced around 200,000 people from central and eastern Khan Younis, and 12,600 from camps in Deir al Balah.
"There is no space left," Stoner continued, "and barely enough life-saving supplies to keep children alive. Without access to critical assistance, lives will continue to be lost."
Palestinians in Gaza face severe shortages of basic necessities, with half a million subjected to "catastrophic levels" of food insecurity, the report authors said. The amount of water available to Gaza's residents has shrunk by 94% since before Israel's onslaught began in October, and on July 26, Israel bombed the "Tal Sultan Water Reservoir," the leading source of drinking water in Rafah.
"We are talking about at least 34 children who have starved to death," Oxfam policy lead Bushra Khalidi said in the report. "If this estimate doesn't move the world, consider that most U.N. and other reports state that Gaza is on the verge of famine. What is the international community doing about this humanitarian crisis?"
Ola, a 42-year-old from northern Gaza who has been displaced more than fives times since the war began, told aid workers that "things are starting to take a toll and our bodies feel weak and flimsy."
"We can't really walk anymore but have to walk long distances to get water or buy anything," Ola said. "So at the moment, we stopped leaving the place we're in (...) and yesterday we picked and cooked mulberry leaves to block the children's hunger."
"It pains me as an aid worker that I can't do much for others."
At the same time, strict rules and violence at the border—both from direct Israeli attacks and the breakdown of law and order in their wake—make it increasingly difficult to get aid into Gaza, with deliveries dropping by 56% since April, according to U.N. figures. Save the Children reported that it had to wait almost a month at the Kerem Shalom border crossing to get four trucks filled with much-needed medical supplies to the other side. At the same time, Gaza's health facilities, which report authors say have "already collapsed," continue to attempt and treat people with a dwindling supply of U.N. medicines.
Another obstacle to delivering medicine is that Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories will only permit flatbed trucks to enter Gaza, yet temperature-controlled medications can only be transported in closed trucks. Because of this rule, 17 pallets of Save the Children's temperature-controlled medication are currently stranded in Al-Areesh, Egypt.
Oxfam said it had deliveries of water tanks, desalination units, tap stands, generators, and latrines stalled on the other side of the border, while the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) had 864 tents it has so far been unable to bring through.
"This is the first time I find myself unable to offer help to others. It pains me as an aid worker that I can't do much for others. In all past escalations, I would still go out and serve those who needed help," Salma Altaweel, an NRC support manager in Gaza City, said in the report.
When aid workers in Gaza attempt to deliver supplies, they put themselves at risk. On July 13, a drone strike killed two members of a War Child partner organization, while an Israeli airstrike killed four of a War Child and Action Aid partner worker's children and critically injured his wife when it struck his shelter in Nuseirat. Israel fired on a clearly marked U.N. convoy on July 21, and two well-labeled UNICEF convoys were fired upon just two days later. Since October, around 278 aid workers have been killed in Gaza.
Stoner of Save the Children said: "Aid workers are not spared from the violence. One of our staff members was killed alongside his wife and four children by an Israeli airstrike back in December, since then aid workers have continued to be targeted. Humanitarian staff should never be a target and humanitarian operations, including convoys and warehouses, must be protected. We've said it again and again: an immediate and definitive cease-fire is the only way to save lives in Gaza."
The report authors issued a reminder that Israel, as an occupying power in Gaza, is obligated under the Geneva Convention to safeguard the humanitarian needs of Gaza's people by allowing aid to enter and be administered safely.
"Our continued presence should not be mistaken for an indication of unimpeded access," the aid groups wrote. "We operate at great risk, despite significant impediments to our access. The risks our colleagues are exposed to each moment are unacceptable and contrary to their protections under international law. In Gaza, we are not witnessing a 'shrinking' humanitarian space; there is barely any space left to operate at all."
They concluded, "We, the undersigned NGOs, continue to call for an immediate and lasting cease-fire and maintain it is the only way to provide humanitarian assistance and protect and save lives in Gaza."
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Gaza Newborn Saved From Womb of Mother Killed in Israeli Airstrike
Malek Yassin was born into the hell that is Gaza during the 293 days of relentless Israeli bombings and blockade that have claimed the lives of more than 16,000 Palestinian children.
Jul 25, 2024
The recent rescue of a newborn from the womb of his mother after she was killed by an Israeli airstrike on a Gaza refugee camp has renewed focus on the horrors endured by Palestinian children and their families during Israel's nine-and-a-half-month onslaught.
Ola Al-Kurd was nine months pregnant and "wanted to hold her child and fill our home with his presence," Adnan Al-Kurd, the slain woman's father, toldReuters.
But last Friday, an Israeli strike on their family home in the Al-Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza killed the woman and several of her relatives. Surgeons at Al-Awda Hospital were able to safely deliver her baby, Malek Yassin, who was transferred to Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah and placed in an incubator.
"This baby's life was saved and he is now alive and well," said Al-Aqsa physician Dr. Khalil Al-Dakran. However, the infant's survival is far from guaranteed.
"We are in fact facing very great difficulties in the nursery department," Al-Dakran explained, pointing to an acute lack of medication, fuel to run generators, and other critical supplies.
"What is the fault of this child to start his life under difficult and very bad circumstances, deprived of the most basic necessities of life?" he asked.
Earlier this year, another Gaza newborn rescued from her slain mother's womb at just 30 weeks' gestation died days later at Emirati Maternity Hospital in Rafah.
Israel's 293-day siege, bombardment, and invasion of Gaza—which has killed, wounded, or left missing at least 140,000 Palestinians—has been hell on children and their mothers. The embattled enclave's healthcare infrastructure has been largely obliterated, forcing many mothers to give birth in precarious places, including in tents, streets, and even public bathrooms.
Basic survival items like diapers and formula have also been in extremely short supply in Gaza, which the United Nations Children's Fund has called "the world's most dangerous place to be a child."
As The British Medical Journalreported earlier this year, mothers in Gaza are "burying their newborns every day" as they have nothing to feed them due to what United Nations experts, human rights groups, and parties to the South Africa-led genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) have called Israel's use of starvation as a weapon of war.
Oxfam said early in the war that children in Gaza were dying from preventable causes including diarrhea, hypothermia, dehydration, and infections.
In January, the ICJ ordered Israel to prevent genocidal acts including blocking food and other aid from entering Gaza. Human rights groups accused Israel of ignoring the order.
The World Court then issued a new order in March, reiterating its directive to prevent genocide, citing "worsening conditions" in Gaza, including "the spread of famine and starvation."
Dozens of Palestinians—almost all of them children—have died from malnutrition, dehydration, and lack of access to healthcare in Gaza over recent months.
Of the more than 39,000 Gazans who have been killed by Israel's bombs, bullets, and blockade, at least 16,000 are children, according to Palestinian and international agencies.
Israeli forces have allegedly deliberately targeted and executed children and their mothers. Israeli Air Force warplanes are dropping shrapnel-packed fragmentation bombs that doctors say are eviscerating children's bodies and causing a "constant flow of amputations."
The humanitarian group Save the Children said late last month that nearly 21,000 Palestinian children are missing in Gaza, with 17,000 orphaned and around 4,000 others believed to be dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed buildings. An unknown number of children are also believed to be buried in mass graves.
Israeli bombardments have wiped out entire Palestinian families.
Israel's onslaught is also causing what one Gaza mother called the "complete psychological destruction" of child survivors.
Last month, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres added Israel to the so-called "List of Shame" of countries and groups that kill and injure children.
On Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and 13 Democratic colleagues sent a letter to the Israeli and Egyptian ambassadors to the United States urging them to expedite the evacuation of critically ill and injured Palestinian children from Gaza.
"While people disagree about the war in Gaza, everyone should agree that no government should prevent injured children access to potentially lifesaving medical care," the senators wrote. "Rather, governments should be doing everything possible to assist in this situation."
"We must all treat the welfare of children in Gaza as an urgent humanitarian priority and work together to prevent further suffering," the lawmakers added.
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