Killing, displacement and starvation... Israeli genocide assassinates World Children's Day in Gaza

While the world's children celebrate their international day, their counterparts in the Gaza Strip are living under the Israeli genocide that has been ongoing for more than a year, which has imposed an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe on them, between killing, displacement, starvation and the loss of the most basic rights of childhood.

Since October 7, 2023, children in Gaza have been facing all kinds of genocide, suffering from difficult living conditions in tents that lack the most basic necessities of life, in light of the scarcity of water and food, and not receiving education and appropriate health care.

Wednesday marks Universal Children's Day, which falls on November 20 of each year, and was approved by the United Nations in 1954, as a global occasion to enhance international solidarity and raise awareness of children's rights around the world, and improve their well-being.

Bitter reality

Children in Gaza live a bitter reality, as Palestinian government reports stated that children and women constituted 70 percent of the total victims of the genocide carried out by Tel Aviv on the Strip.

Inside one of the shelter schools in Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian girl Saneen Al-Masry (11 years old), who was displaced from the north of the Strip, told Anadolu Agency: “Since October 7, the sky has been lit up with Israeli missiles, reflecting their lights on the ground.”

In the language of childhood, she appeals: “Oh world, I am a little girl who has grown up before my time, and what I see around me I cannot bear... Oh world, why is there injustice every hour and every day?”

Near the school, you can see tents full of children displaced by the Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing, suffering from the bitter cold and lack of the most basic necessities of life.

In the midst of this suffering, the Palestinian girl, Salsabil Abu Anza (7 years old), stands near her tent, hoping that the war will end so that she can return to playing with her toys.

She told Anadolu Agency: "On International Children's Day, I hope to live in freedom. My father is a prisoner in the Israeli occupation prisons, and I hope to embrace him and see him like every child. I have the right to live in his arms."

Despite her young age, she expresses her dissatisfaction with the betrayal, saying: “There is no one to support us in light of the Israeli war. We are sitting in a tent and we cannot find any other place.”

Nearby, Asmaa, a 6-year-old girl, told Anadolu Agency: “On Children’s Day, I hope to become a doctor when I grow up.”

Regarding the Israeli genocide, she says: “My father was martyred during it, and I am afraid of the sound of missiles, and I cannot find a warm embrace to hide in when I hear the sounds.”

She added, "All children play with their parents except us. We live to the sound of the Israeli war, and we hope that it will end so that we can live in safety like the rest of the children of the world."

The Palestinian girl Dima Daif Allah (7 years old) does not hide her voice, as it rises, demanding an end to the Israeli genocide and to live with dignity like the rest of the children of the world.

Because she lives in the reality of hunger imposed by Israel on the Strip, Dima tells Anadolu Agency: “On Children’s Day, we hope to live like the rest of the world’s children, playing and eating good food, and I hope I can eat like them.”

She continues with the usual eagerness of children: “My relatives and friends were martyred in the war, and I hope the war ends so that I can return to school.”

Israel killed 17,492 children

Over the course of more than a year, Israel has killed more than 17,492 Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip, while about 35,060 children live without one or both of their parents, according to the latest figures from the government media office in Gaza.

In turn, the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, said on the “X” platform on Wednesday: “Today, the rights of Palestinian children are being violated, and Gaza has become a graveyard for them, as their right to safety and education has been taken away.”

Tel Aviv has turned the Gaza Strip into the largest prison in the world, besieging it for the 18th year, and the "genocidal" war has forced about two million of its citizens, numbering about 2.3 million Palestinians, to flee in catastrophic conditions, with a severe and deliberate shortage of food, water and medicine.

With American and Western support, Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza since October 7, 2023, leaving more than 148,000 Palestinians dead and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 10,000 missing, amid massive destruction and famine that killed dozens of children and the elderly, in one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world.

Israel continues its massacres, ignoring the UN Security Council resolution to end them immediately, and the International Court of Justice’s orders to take measures to prevent acts of genocide and improve the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Source: Anadolu Agency