Middle East Regional Director for Save the Children, Jeremy Stoner, said in a statement: ‘What we’re seeing now in Gaza looks like the depths of hell with reports day after day of attacks on children and families. Nowhere is safe.’

‘In the north, an already starving population has been cut off from food for two weeks while trying to dodge bombs and bullets in a kill zone they cannot leave,’ he said.

‘In the south – the area to which families in the north were directed for their safety – bombs dropped by Israeli jets have set off a fire that is searing through Al-Aqsa Hospital and tents in the hospital grounds, with reports of rescuers finding burned and charred bodies. ‘Evacuation orders’ are at risk of becoming ‘execution orders’ as children are denied the means to survive,’ added the statement.

‘What military goals could justify such mass-scale slaughter of civilians? The notion of collateral damage must never be used to excuse the predictable killing of children, he stressed. ‘A year ago, there was inte
rnational outcry when an Israeli rocket damaged Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, injuring four staff members. How devastatingly far we have descended.’

Today, Save the Children has begun a second round of polio vaccines for children in our Deir Al-Balah clinic, as children face bombs and fire just 500m away, noted the statement. ‘Never has it been clearer that this is a war on children, their protection is only upheld if they’re deemed a risk to those beyond their borders.’

‘Without a ceasefire, these vaccinations simply postpone rather than prevent children’s pain. Without immediate international action, children and families across the Gaza Strip face a death sentence – today, tomorrow, in a week, in a month, by bombs, bullets, fire, disease, or starvation. Anywhere, any time.’

‘Gaza is what can happen without the rules of war,’ he stressed, adding: ‘Except there are rules – for parties to the conflict, and for the international community – which are not being respected. The only impactful action taken by
some UN member states is to send the weapons being used to kill children and burn patients and families in hospitals and tents. Humanity has lost its way if those with the ability – and legal obligation – to stop this slaughter choose not to.’

Source: Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA