About 30% of the 11,300 identified children killed in Gaza between last October and 31 August were younger than five, according to a newly published breakdown of the ages of about 34,000 people whose deaths have been verified by Gaza's Ministry of Health. Of those about 710 were babies aged under 12 months. Another 2,800 children killed have yet to be identified.
The occupied Palestinian territory is now ranked as the deadliest place in the world for children, who face constant exposure to violence in Gaza, a lack of access to adequate healthcare and the highest rates of child malnutrition globally, with 83% of required food aid not making it into Gaza according to aid organisations.
UN experts have warned of famine looming in Gaza with the deaths of several children due to malnutrition and hunger already reported and Save the Children staff working in a primary healthcare centre in Gaza reporting ever increasing cases of child malnutrition.
Save the Children recently screened nearly 3,000 children under 5, finding that nearly 20% of them were suffering with moderate acute malnutrition and nearly 4% with severe acute malnutrition. Staff have reported seeing children scouring through rubbish and debris to find food.
Children aged under five and women who are pregnant or breastfeeding are most vulnerable to malnutrition as their bodies have greater need for nutrients. A child with acute malnutrition is 11 times more likely to die from common childhood illnesses, including pneumonia and nearly half of deaths among children under 5 years globally are linked to undernutrition.
However, difficulties in collecting and verifying data in Gaza due to security challenges, access restrictions, and destruction of infrastructure make it impossible to verify exact numbers at risk or suffering from malnutrition.
Somayya*, 37, a mother of seven, and her family had to flee northern Gaza last year and now live in a shelter for displaced people in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza. Her youngest child Ali* is so severely malnourished that he has developed osteomalacia or "soft bone disease", leaving him unable to move or walk. Ali is now being treated at a Save the Children clinic.
Somayya said: "My son is one year and a half and is malnourished. His siblings at his age used to walk and were well fed. Now there is no food or anything. Ali cannot walk or hold onto a chair, he cannot even crawl. He does not eat eggs or meat or milk. Nothing is available."
Save the Children warns that the current health crisis in Gaza, with only 17 out of 36 hospitals partially functional threatens to create a generation with both physical and mental injuries, with some children facing lasting impacts of trauma and other with life-changing injuries.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that around 25% of all those injured, or 22,500 people, are likely to have acute and ongoing rehabilitation needs, including patients with extremity injuries, amputations, head and spinal cord injuries and burns.
Jeremy Stoner, Save the Children's Regional Director for the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe said:
"The damage caused has shattered the very foundations of life in Gaza and will threaten the future of Palestinian children for generations to come. It is heart-breaking to see such young children robbed of any hope. Life-changing injuries, starvation, a health and education crisis ... the cumulative impact of such across-the-board harm is not only putting children's lives at risk every day, but also their futures."
"We are doing everything we can to respond to children needs and will keep calling for children's rights and international law to be respected, for as long as it takes – and for accountability when they are not. There must be an immediate definitive ceasefire. For every day without a ceasefire, it gets harder to help children piece together the shattered shards of their lives. For thousands of children, it's already too late."
Save the Children has been working in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) since 1953 and has a permanent presence in Gaza where we deliver lifesaving health, nutrition, and protection support. This includes pre-natal and maternal care and treatment for newborns and child malnutrition. We also provide mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) for children and caregivers. Alongside emergency food supplies, clean water, and hygiene products, we are advocating for immediate, unrestricted humanitarian access to ensure that lifesaving aid reaches children in need.
