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save the children
'Child After Child': Israel Has Killed 270+ Gaza Children Since Ditching Cease-Fire Last Week, Says NGO
"Children and families in Gaza have barely caught their breath and are now being plunged back into a horrifically familiar world of harm that they cannot escape," said Save the Children's regional director.
Mar 25, 2025
Since fully abandoning a two-month cease-fire in the Gaza Strip a week ago, the Israel Defense Forces have slaughtered more than 270 children in the Palestinian enclave, the global charity Save the Children said on social media Tuesday.
"Bombs falling, hospitals destroyed, children killed, and the world is silent. No aid, no safety, no future," said Save the Children humanitarian director Rachael Cummings. The group also noted that the death toll since October 2023 has topped 50,000.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Tuesday that since March 18, the IDF has killed at least 792 people and injured 1,663, bringing the totals over the past 18 months to 50,144 dead and 113,704 wounded. Thousands more are missing and presumed dead.
On Monday, Drop Site News' Sharif Kouddous reported that the ministry "released a 1,516-page document listing the names of over 50,000 Palestinians confirmed killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023. There are a total of 474 pages listing 15,600+ children's names. The first 27 pages the age is listed as 0—children under 1 year old."
In addition to the 876 infants under age 1, Drop Sitedetailed on social media, the IDF has killed at least 1,686 toddlers (1-2 years), 2,424 preschoolers (3-5 years), 5,745 elementary school students (6-12 years), 2,837 young teens (13-15 years), and 2,045 older teens (16-17 years).
The outlet noted that "this toll does not include deaths from indirect causes such as starvation, disease, or the thousands still missing under the rubble. Researchers have said the actual toll could be three to five times higher."
The Associated Pressreported Tuesday that "when the first explosions in Gaza this week started around 1:30 am, a visiting British doctor went to the balcony of a hospital in Khan Younis and watched the streaks of missiles light up the night before pounding the city."
Dr. Sakib Rokadiya then headed to Nasser Hospital's emergency ward, which soon filled with people harmed by the strikes. "Just child after child, young patient after young patient," he said. "The vast, vast majority were women, children, the elderly."
The AP shared more accounts from healthcare providers at the largest hospital in southern Gaza, including Dr. Feroze Sidhwa:
Sidhwa, an American trauma surgeon from California with the medical charity MedGlobal, rushed immediately to the area where the hospital put the worst-off patients still deemed possible to save.
But the very first little girl he saw—3 or 4 years old—was too far gone. Her face was mangled by shrapnel. "She was technically still alive," Sidhwa said, but with so many other casualties "there was nothing we could do."
He told the girl's father she was going to die. Sidhwa went on to do some 15 operations, one after another.
When Israel fully ditched the cease-fire last week, after many violations since mid-January, Ahmad Alhendawi, Save the Children's regional director, said that "children and families in Gaza have barely caught their breath and are now being plunged back into a horrifically familiar world of harm that they cannot escape."
"These airstrikes come as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians remain displaced, their homes destroyed and uninhabitable, with tents all that stand between them and explosive weapons designed for wide reach," he pointed out. "Children are the most vulnerable to explosive weapons. Their lighter bodies are thrown further by the blasts, and their bones are softer and bend more easily, with higher risk of secondary injuries and long-term deformities and disabilities. Their small bodies have less blood to lose—a death sentence when emergency services can't safely operate and reach them."
"Children who survive the onslaught will not be able to receive adequate medical care or even basic pain medication, following the government of Israel's restrictions on and denial of medical supplies and the fuel hospitals need to function," Alhendawi continued. "This cannot be what world powers allow children to return to. When children are slaughtered en masse, humanity's moral and legal foundations crumble. We have seen it for ourselves: The only way to ensure children and families are protected as international law requires is through a cease-fire. This time, it must be definitive—the constant threat of war cannot be left hanging over their heads."
He added that "until then, even wars have laws, and those laws are clear. Civilians must be actively protected, with concrete steps taken to avoid and minimize civilian casualties. There is no military imperative that can justify atrocity crimes. And the international community must use all available means—exhaustively, not selectively—to ensure international law is upheld. Anything less is a global failure—not a mistake, not a regrettable dilemma, but a total dereliction of legal duty. Failure to act now risks the annihilation of children and their futures."
Global demands for a renewed cease-fire have mounted over the past week as Israel has returned to a full-blown military assault, backed by a U.S. government now controlled by President Donald Trump and Republican majorities in Congress.
"During the 42-day cease-fire families in Gaza could finally fall asleep knowing their loved ones would still be beside them when they woke up," Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam's policy lead for the occupied Palestinian territories, said Monday. "Even though aid that entered was not enough—far from enough—it was something. The price of food stabilized. Supermarkets reopened. Bakeries began running again. Many people even went to their homes or what was left of it, and tried to repair and rebuild, however little they could."
Khalidi explained that "Oxfam, through its partners has been able to initiate emergency water trucking across the Gaza Strip, and are maintaining some other aid programs, such as multipurpose cash transfers, despite the severe challenges that all humanitarian workers now face around lack of protection."
"For the past 535 days, Israel has been systematically weaponizing lifesaving aid, inflicting collective punishment upon the population of Gaza," she continued. "The denial of food, water, fuel and electricity is a war crime and a crime against humanity. Many within the international community are enabling this by their silence, inaction, and complicity."
Oxfam called for a permanent cease-fire, the safe return of Israeli hostages and illegally detained Palestinian prisoners, "unfettered aid at scale," and other governments to stop transferring arms to the involved parties. The group also said that "we reiterate our call for justice and accountability for all those affected."
Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice, and the International Criminal Court in November issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhau, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and a Hamas leader who has since been confirmed dead.
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BBC Rebuked for Canceling Documentary 'Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone'
Hundreds of British artists and media personalities argue that the film "deserves recognition, not politically motivated censorship."
Feb 28, 2025
Hundreds of U.K. artists and media personalities have signed an open letter decrying the British Broadcasting Corporation's removal of a documentary film about the horrifying impacts of Israel's Gaza onslaught on children.
The BBC pulled Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone—which was produced by Hoyo Films—after the broadcaster learned that its 14-year-old narrator was the son of a Hamas official.
Juliet Stevenson, Gary Lineker, Khalid Abdalla, Anita Rani, and Miriam Margolyes are among the more than 800 film, television, and media workers who, as of Friday, have signed the Artists for Palestineletter condemning what signers called the censorship and racism behind the BBC's cancellation.
"We are U.K.-based film and TV professionals and journalists writing in support of the BBC documentary Gaza: How To Survive A War Zone, which aired on February 17 on BBC Two and was subsequently made available on iPlayer," states the letter, whose signatories include a dozen BBC employees.
"This film is an essential piece of journalism, offering an all-too-rare perspective on the lived experiences of Palestinian children living in unimaginable circumstances, which amplifies voices so often silenced. It deserves recognition, not politically motivated censorship," the letter continues.
Why have the BBC apologised for & removed the documentary 'Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone'? Because it went some way to humanising Palestinians. Here some young children flee in terror from Israeli bullets.
[image or embed]
— Saul Staniforth (@saulstaniforth.bsky.social) February 28, 2025 at 3:24 AM
"Beneath this political football are children who are in the most dire circumstances of their young lives," the signers added. "This is what must remain at the heart of this discussion. As program-makers, we are extremely alarmed by the intervention of partisan political actors on this issue, and what this means for the future of broadcasting in this country."
The Gaza Health Ministry said more than 17,000 Palestinian children have been killed and thousands more wounded by Israeli attacks on the coastal enclave, 10,000 of them in the first 100 days of the war, according to the charity Save the Children. The International Rescue Committee published a report last October revealing that as many as 50,000 children in Gaza have been orphaned or separated from their parents.
Hundreds of thousands more children have been forcibly displaced, with some dying from exposure to cold, windy, rainy conditions. Many other Gazan children have been sickened and starved, sometimes to death—their deaths partly attributed to the "complete siege" imposed on the strip by Israel, which is facing genocide charges at the International Court of Justice in the Netherlands.
The Israeli assault has wrought what Save the Children called the "complete psychological destruction" of Gaza's children, 96% of whom feared imminent death, according to a survey conducted last December by the Gaza-based Community Training Center for Crisis Management, and supported by War Child Alliance.
The international charity Doctors Without Borders has called Gaza "the most dangerous place in the world to be a child."
Another documentary about Palestine, No Other Land, has been nominated for an Academy Award but is unavailable to stream in the United States because no distributor was willing to take it.
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As Billionaire Wealth Soared in 2024, 35 Children Were Born Into Hunger Every Minute
More than 18 million kids were born into hunger this year, according to a new analysis, as the collective net worth of the world's richest grew to a record $14 trillion.
Dec 30, 2024
An analysis published Monday by the humanitarian group Save the Children estimates that roughly 35 kids across the globe were born into hunger every minute in 2024—a year in which the world's billionaires saw their combined wealth surge to a record high.
At least 18.2 million children were born into hunger this year, according to the new analysis, as war and climate-fueled extreme weather pushed around 800,000 more kids into hunger compared to 2023. Roughly half of all young child deaths worldwide are caused by malnutrition, experts say.
"Over 18 million newborns this year—35 children a minute—were born into a world where hunger is their reality from their first moments of life," Hannah Stephenson, global head of hunger and nutrition at Save the Children, said in a statement Monday. "Hunger knows no boundaries. It erodes childhoods, drains children's energy, and risks robbing them of their futures. Children should be free to play or expand their minds in class. No child should be worrying about when their next meal will be."
"We need immediate funding and safe access to humanitarian lifesaving services for children and families in desperate need of food, nutrition, healthcare, safe water, sanitation and hygiene, social protection, and livelihoods support," Stephenson added. "We have the tools to significantly reduce the number of malnourished children right now, like we have in the past."
Oxfam has estimated that eradicating world hunger entirely would require nations to contribute $31.7 billion more to global efforts to combat food insecurity—a fraction of the collective wealth of the planet's 2,682 billionaires.
According to a UBS study released earlier this month, billionaire wealth has increased by 121% over the past decade, reaching a record $14 trillion this year. Billionaires located in the U.S. saw the largest gains, UBS found, with their combined wealth growing by nearly 28% this year alone.
During that same 12 months, the number of children born into hunger rose by around 5% compared to the preceding year, Save the Children's analysis of United Nations data found.
"Children born into hunger this year include babies born in countries facing a risk of famine or catastrophic conditions of acute food insecurity including South Sudan, Haiti, Mali, and Sudan," Save the Children observed. "In addition, there was a warning in early November of a strong likelihood that famine was imminent or already underway in the northern Gaza Strip and 345,000 people across Gaza could face catastrophic hunger in the coming months."
The group noted that the intensifying climate crisis—which billionaires help fuel with their emission-heavy lifestyles—poses a dire threat to children's access to food worldwide.
"More than 1.4 million babies were born into hunger in Pakistan, one of the world's most climate-vulnerable countries," Save the Children noted. "Pakistan saw the second highest number of babies born into hunger among countries with over 20% undernourishment."
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