Najla M. Shahwan

The ongoing conflict in the Gaza Strip has inflicted unprecedented and potentially irreversible harm on Palestinian children, with consequences that threaten not only their individual futures but the very fabric of Palestinian society for generations to come.

For more than 14 months , at least two million Palestinians have been trapped inside Gaza, about half under the age of 18, as Israel pounds them in retaliation for Hamas’s surprise attack last October 7 on southern Israel .

An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks on October 7.

Approximately 50,000 Palestinians mostly women and children, including thousands trapped under the rubble for long enough periods of time now presumed dead, have been killed by Israel since then .

Strikes by Israeli occupation forces continue, with aerial, land and maritime bombardments across the Gaza Strip, resulting in civilian casualties, displacement and the destruction of residential structures and public infrastructure.

Buildings have been levelled, homes, hospitals schools and mosques bombed and families annihilated.

The smell of explosives permeates the entire strip.

Gaza has been cut off from food, clean water, medicine, electricity and fuel.

The restrictions imposed by Israeli authorities on the entry of humanitarian supplies to help prepare communities for the rainy season have left 500,000 people – almost half of whom are children – in areas that are being flooded with dirty water and sewage.

Around 235,000 children forced from their homes by bombs, bullets and displacement orders in Gaza are facing increasing risk of disease as days of heavy rains flood tents and turn camps into swamps, Save the Children said recently. UN official says Palestinian children are “paying the heaviest price” as Gaza faces critical humanitarian aid shortages and spike in malnutrition.

The UN said earlier that of the total number of children admitted for outpatient treatment of acute malnutrition since the beginning of 2024, two thirds were recorded in the past five months.

In addition, with the destruction of the healthcare system, children in Gaza are unable to receive the lifesaving health care they need in the face of these risks.

The healthcare crisis in Gaza has left children more vulnerable to future health challenges. Their weakened immune systems, untreated conditions, and the lack of preventive care will force them to be susceptible to diseases and health complications in the future.

On the other hand, the ongoing war in Gaza has deprived all children in the Strip from accessing education and over 93% of schools have been destroyed by Israeli airstrikes, exacerbating the dire humanitarian crisis which will have a severe negative effect on psychosocial well-being of students, teachers and caregivers.

The number of Palestinian children—whether infants or children in general—killed by the Israeli army is horrifying, and the rate of their killing is unprecedented in the history of modern wars.

Every day, infant deaths in the Gaza Strip are reported as a direct result of Israeli crimes that are legally classified as acts of genocide.

For the past 14months, Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip have been denied their fundamental rights and have not been protected in any way by international law.

They have become primary, direct, and deliberate targets of the Israeli army, and have even been subject to premeditated killings and direct executions.

Aside from being arbitrarily detained, they have been the victims of forced disappearance, siege, torture and other forms of inhumane treatment including the starvation, thirst, deprivation of education, denial of access to healthcare and other necessities of life.

Many Palestinian children are also victims of family dispersion, have lost parental care and no one is able to shield them from the pervasive violence.

The war in Gaza is taking children from parents and parents from children, undoing the natural order of things, fracturing the basic unit of Gazan life.

Amid the bombing, the constant hasty and confusing evacuations from tent to tent and apartment to hospital to shelter, many children have lost track of their parents and many more have lost them for good.

Thousands have had limbs amputated, have suffered severe burns or other serious injuries all of which will have a detrimental impact on their physical and psychological development.

This will have serious, far-reaching consequences on their futures and their ability to enjoy their other rights, making them more vulnerable to poverty, unemployment and exploitation.

The international community must immediately act and do everything in its power to ensure that Gaza’s children are able to live in freedom, with dignity and safety.

That is the only solution to the current horrifying inhuman situation.

There are no safe spaces. All of Gaza’s children have been exposed to the traumatic experiences of war, the consequences of which will last a lifetime.

Gaza’s children have endured unimaginable horrors – they deserve an immediate ceasefire and a chance for a peaceful future.