Children in Gaza bear ‘tremendous share of scars’ of war: UNICEF

Children in Gaza have become the faces of the ongoing war as their stories paint a “harrowing picture” of the human consequences of the conflict, a UNICEF official said on Tuesday.

“Children are wearing a tremendous share of the scars of this war,” UNICEF Communication Specialist Tess Ingram, who left Gaza on Monday after spending two weeks there, told a UN press briefing in Geneva.

Citing the latest figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Ingram said that more than 12,000 children-almost 70 children every day-were injured in Gaza since Oct 7.

This is “almost certainly an underestimate,” she stressed, adding that only a small number of all reported injuries are disaggregated to specify when it is a child that has been injured.

On medical evacuations, she said: “With at least 70 children injured every day, we need the number of medical evacuations to increase so children can access the care they urgently need.”

“And with one child killed or injured every ten minutes, above anything else, we need a cease-fire,” she urged, saying cease-fire “is the only way to stop the killing and maiming of children.”

Tensions have been high across the occupied territory amid ongoing Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, which left nearly 33,800 people dead since a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7.

At least 468 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli army fire in the West Bank since then, according to the Health Ministry.