Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, reported that the number of children killed in Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza surpassed the number of child casualties in four years of wars around the world, according to The Peninsula.
“Staggering. The number of children reported killed in just over 4 months in Gaza is higher than the number of children killed in 4 years of wars around the world combined.”
Lazzarini relied on UN data showing that 12,193 children died in conflicts around the world between 2019 and 2022. According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, over 12,300 children were killed in Gaza between October 2023 and the end of February 2024.
This war is a war on children. It is a war on their childhood and their future.
Israel launched a retaliatory military offensive against the Gaza Strip following a cross-border attack on 7 October led by the Palestinian group Hamas that killed some 1,200 people.
At the same time, over 31,100 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, with more than 72,700 others injured amid widespread destruction and a shortage of basic necessities, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Israel faces genocide charges at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop acts of genocide and take measures to ensure that humanitarian aid was provided to civilians in Gaza.
