Middle East crisis: one child killed every hour in Gaza, UN says – as it happened
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Quoting Unicef figures, the UN agency for Palestine refugees (Unrwa) has said that 14,500 Palestinian children have been killed since the start of Israel’s war on the territory last October. In a post on X, Unrwa, which has been banned from operating within Israel and occupied East Jerusalem by the Israeli parliament, wrote:.
![[Palestinian children at a shelter in Gaza City.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/918b5313421ff479dfc6b4bb2cb541685c07780a/0_346_5184_3110/master/5184.jpg?width=465&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
One child gets killed every hour. These are not numbers. These are lives cut short. Killing children cannot be justified. Those who survive are scarred physically and emotionally. Deprived of learning, boys & girls in Gaza sift through the rubble. The clock is ticking for these children. They are losing their lives, their futures & mostly their hope.
![[Ahmed al-Sharaa watches the view of Damascus on Mount Qasioun in Syria on 22 December 2024.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/08afbdae2d02099b44654aa885824756ed5a6a9a/0_241_7072_4244/master/7072.jpg?width=465&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
The estimated death toll from Israeli airstrikes in Gaza (in early December this year) was more than 44,000 and a recent assessment by the UN Human Rights Office found that 44% of the fatalities it was able to verify were children. About 1.9 million Palestinians in Gaza, approximately 90% of the territory’s total population, have been displaced, many several times. Half of that number are children who have lost their home and been forced to flee their neighbourhoods.
![[Marc and Debra Tice, the parents of US journalist Austin Tice (portrait L), speak at a press conference in Beirut in 2018.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/13e31a99dd4641bba970a29dd1d87f8953d4e301/0_0_4828_2898/master/4828.jpg?width=465&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
The UN agency for Palestine refugees (Unrwa) said that 14,500 Palestinian children have been killed since the start of Israel’s war on the territory last October. “One child gets killed every hour. These are not numbers. These are lives cut short. Killing children cannot be justified,” the agency wrote in a post on X.
![[Houthi fighters take part in a parade during a mobilisation campaign in Sana’a, Yemen.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/0813827a0cf3ab148b5c12ed4505fdf1c7dee024/0_271_3976_2387/master/3976.jpg?width=465&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
