Children in Gaza need life-saving support
No safe place for children as humanitarian crisis deepens.
The escalation of hostilities in the Gaza Strip is having a catastrophic impact on children and families. Children are dying at an alarming rate – more than 13,000 are reported to have been killed in this current conflict and thousands more have been injured. Around 1.7 million people in the Gaza Strip are estimated to have been internally displaced – half of them children. They do not have enough access to water, food, fuel and medicine. Their homes have been destroyed; their families torn apart.
In Rafah, some 600,000 children are currently taking shelter, many in tents or informal and unstable housing. Many children have been displaced multiple times and have lost homes, parents and loved ones. They need to be protected, along with the remaining services that they rely on, including medical facilities and shelter.
“Rafah is now a city of children, who have nowhere safe to go in Gaza.”
Even wars have rules. No child should be cut off from essential services, nor fall from the reach of humanitarian hands. No child should be held hostage or used by any means in armed conflict. Hospitals and schools must be protected from bombings, and they must not be used for military purposes, in accordance with international humanitarian law.
What is UNICEF calling for?
UNICEF continues to press world leaders on every occasion for humanitarian access to the whole of Gaza. To respond to the situation for children in Israel and the State of Palestine, UNICEF is calling for:
- An immediate and long-lasting humanitarian ceasefire.
- Safe and unrestricted humanitarian access to and within the Gaza Strip to reach affected populations wherever they are, including in the north. All access crossings must be opened including for sufficient fuel and materials needed to run and rehabilitate essential infrastructure and commercial supplies. Safe movement for humanitarian workers and supplies across the Gaza Strip must be guaranteed and reliable telecommunications networks made available to coordinate response efforts.
- The immediate, safe and unconditional release of all abducted children, and an end to any grave violations against all children, including killing and maiming of children.
- Respect and protection for civilian infrastructure such as shelters and schools, and health, electric, water, sanitation and telecommunications facilities, to prevent loss of civilian and children’s lives, outbreaks of diseases, and to provide care to the sick and wounded. All parties to the conflict must respect international humanitarian law.
- Urgent medical cases in Gaza to be able to safely access critical health services or be allowed to leave, and for injured or sick children evacuated to be accompanied by family members.
- Continued protection of children and their families if they are unable or unwilling to move following an evacuation order – people should be allowed to move freely to safer areas, but they should never be forced to do so.
Find out more about UNICEF’s response:
Recent news and updates
What's happening in Gaza?
Even before the current crisis, children in the State of Palestine had grown up under the shadow of recurrent violence and crushing poverty. Now, children in the Gaza Strip face the deadly effects of disease and malnutrition as escalating hostilities cut them off from safe water, food and medicine. For the 600,000 children – roughly half of the displaced population – who fled to Rafah, another threat looms. The imminent possibility of bombing has followed families to the place they sought safety, and there is nowhere else for children to go.
Families are under attack
Children and their families have come under attack in the places they should be safest – their homes, shelters, hospitals and places of worship. Since the escalation, thousands of children have been injured and killed. Children have been reporting to hospitals with severe burns, injuries that required amputation and have left open wounds and other serious injuries.
And through it all, children remain cut off from psychosocial care. Before this latest escalation, more than 500,000 children in Gaza were identified as needing mental health and psychosocial support. Today, every child has been exposed to deeply distressing events and trauma, marked by widespread destruction and displacement. Meanwhile, parents and caregivers are themselves under intense mental strain.
The threat of disease is soaring
Water production capacity has plummeted to just a fraction of its normal output with many water, sanitation and hygiene facilities damaged or destroyed. People have lost reliable access to safe water, toilets and washing facilities and displaced children and their families are unable to maintain hygiene levels needed to prevent disease and chronic diarrhoea – a leading killer of young children in all emergencies.
Reported cases of diarrhoea among children under the age of 5 have soared, while cases of scabies, lice, chicken pox, skin rashes and respiratory infections have also climbed. The very few functioning hospitals are so focused on responding to injured patients that they are unable to adequately treat disease outbreaks.
Access to nutritious food has plummeted
Malnutrition among children is spreading fast and reaching devastating and unprecedented levels in the Gaza Strip. For many families, the threat of dying from hunger is already real. The violence has also shut down lifesaving prevention and treatment services for malnutrition that were previously reaching hundreds of thousands of children.
When combined and left untreated, malnutrition and disease create a deadly cycle. Children with poor health and nutrition are more vulnerable to serious infections. Without sufficient nutritious food, children will quickly become malnourished and child wasting, the most life-threatening form of malnutrition in children, could soar. UNICEF is particularly worried about the nutrition of pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers, as well as children under two, given their specific needs and vulnerability.
How is UNICEF supporting children in Gaza?
UNICEF continues to focus on the critical needs of children for protection and humanitarian assistance – but access remains difficult and dangerous. UNICEF staff, along with our United Nations and civil society partners, remain in Gaza but must be allowed to provide life-saving aid at scale, especially where access is most constrained. UNICEF has dispatched emergency supplies including water, life-saving medicines and equipment, but much more is needed to meet the immense needs of civilians.
UNICEF is on the ground in Gaza working with partners in these areas:
Displacement
Around 1.7 million people in the Gaza Strip are estimated to have been internally displaced – half of them children. Families that have survived the fighting are being pushed into overcrowded areas, living on roads, in the streets, under construction buildings or wherever else they can find space. UNICEF is providing tents, tarpaulins, blankets and winter clothes to recently displaced children and families. In response to the deteriorating sanitation services for internally displaced persons staying in overcrowded shelters, UNICEF is also working with partners to construct sanitation facilities.
Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH)
The resumption of the hostilities, coupled with a lack of power supply, fuel shortages, restricted access, and massive damage to infrastructure means that many WASH facilities are no longer functioning properly. People have lost reliable access to safe water, toilets and washing facilities. The impact on children is severe, as they are more susceptible to dehydration, diarrhoea, disease, and malnutrition.
When access is possible, UNICEF has supported water trucking to shelters and the distribution of bottled water to help families access safe water. UNICEF is providing water containers, chlorine tablets for water purification, and distributing family hygiene kits and hundreds of thousands of bars of soap. UNICEF is also providing fuel to operate wells, desalination plants and water trucking, as well as operating waste and sewage disposal.
Health
Health facilities are buckling under the sheer number of casualties. Many hospitals have sustained damage and are operating at three times their capacity even as they face critical shortages of basic supplies and fuel. Primary health care services are limited and immunization services have been disrupted.
UNICEF is delivering medical supplies to hospitals and health facilities, including incubators and supplies for newborns and kits for midwives. Working through partners, UNICEF is also contributing to the overall health response through mobile teams, primary health care consultations and support for postnatal care and high-risk pregnancies. This includes immunization of children, disease outbreak preparedness and response, including reaching communities with infection and prevention control activities and providing critical supplies and services.
Nutrition
Gaza’s children are vulnerable to the growing malnutrition crisis, especially those in the north of the Gaza Strip. Without enough nutritious food, people will quickly become malnourished. Most families say their children are only getting grains – including bread – or milk, meeting the definition of ‘severe food poverty.’ Dietary diversity for pregnant and breastfeeding women is also severely compromised.
UNICEF has been delivering a range of essential nutrition supplies including, amongst other essentials, high energy biscuits for young children and micronutrient supplementation for children and pregnant and breastfeeding women. UNICEF is also working with partners to conduct screenings in shelters and healthcare facilities for acute malnutrition.
Child protection
The conflict is having a profound impact on children psychologically. Children are being exposed to horrors that no child should have to witness and they are experiencing anxiety, fear and nightmares. Thousands are unaccompanied or separated from their parents.
UNICEF programmes are focused on helping children to process their thoughts, feelings, and experiences in a safe way. It’s important for children to know they aren’t alone in experiencing these feelings. UNICEF programmes have been supporting basic mental health and psychosocial activities in some shelters as well as recreational activities, including for children with disabilities, across various communities, camps and shelters. In addition, UNICEF is working with partners to provide face-to-face sessions on explosive ordnance risk education across the Gaza Strip.
Education
None of Gaza’s 625,000 students have had safe access to education since 7 October. Around 90 per cent of all school buildings in Gaza are being used as shelters for internally-displaced persons/or have sustained varying levels of damage. At least two-thirds of schools in Gaza will either need full reconstruction or major rehabilitation work to be functional again.
UNICEF continues to work with implementing partners to provide recreational activities, emergency learning, and awareness sessions in support of children’s well-being, reaching more than 200,000 students and teachers, even under the most strenuous circumstances.
Social protection
UNICEF provides humanitarian cash transfers to thousands of families and children to enable them to buy essential items like food, water, and hygiene products that are still available despite shortages and the fragility of the situation.
For more on UNICEF's humanitarian response, access the latest State of Palestine situation reports.
Support UNICEF’s work for children in crises
What challenges does UNICEF face delivering support?
UNICEF remains on the ground, working with partners to provide supplies and support for children and families. But aid is not reaching every child in urgent need. Day after day, UNICEF and partners face three major challenges to reach those who need it most: Safety, logistics and restrictions on commercial goods.
Learn more about aid delivery in Gaza
The ongoing conflict means that it’s incredibly difficult to move safely across the Gaza Strip and to gain access to children in need. Humanitarian workers face the same risks and challenges as the broader population: they have lost family members, friends, and have also been forced to relocate to safety.
Meanwhile, there aren’t enough trucks and there isn’t enough fuel to operate the ones that are available. Trucks carrying relief supplies must undergo multiple layers of inspection before entering the Gaza Strip, but the inspection process remains slow and unpredictable. Once aid gets in, there are further challenges to distributing it across the Gaza Strip. Infrastructure for storing and transporting aid has been damaged. Warehouses are unusable. Drivers entering Gaza face incredibly challenging conditions and road conditions make driving dangerous.
Is UNICEF operational in Israel?
In high-income countries such as Israel, Governments generally have adequate capacity to respond to emergencies. Upon request from the Government, UNICEF can extend support, such as mental health and psychosocial support for children.
In over 30 countries where UNICEF does not perform programmatic activities, National Committees for UNICEF serve as our dedicated voice, helping to raise funds for UNICEF’s work worldwide, to promote children’s rights, and to lift visibility for children threatened by poverty, disasters, armed conflict, abuse and exploitation. The Israeli Fund for UNICEF was established in 2009 to raise awareness of children’s rights in Israel and fundraise for UNICEF’s life-saving work across the world.
Updated: 8 April 2024
