600,000 children in Rafah face “catastrophe,” according to UNICEF
NEW YORK: UNICEF issued a warning today about the “further catastrophe” that 600,000 children living in Gaza’s Rafah city face and urged against their forced displacement after Israel ordered an evacuation in advance of its long-awaited ground invasion.
The United Nations children’s agency issued a statement saying, “Given the high concentration of children in Rafah… UNICEF is warning of a further catastrophe for children, with military operations resulting in very high civilian casualties and the few remaining basic services and infrastructure they need to survive being totally destroyed.”
According to the organization, many of the young people in Rafah where the population has increased to 1.2 million, half of whom are children had previously been relocated more than once and have nowhere else to go, leaving them “on the edge of survival.”
“Children’s lives have suffered in ways that are inconceivable due to over 200 days of warfare,” stated Catherine Russell, executive director of UNICEF.
She warned that a major military attack by Israel would cause “chaos and panic, and at a time when (children’s) physical and mental states are already weakened,” adding, “Rafah is now a city of children, who have nowhere safe to go in Gaza.”
Rafah’s population has swelled to over five times its typical size of 250,000 people, according to estimates from UNICEF.
The organization underlined that about 78,000 newborns under the age of two are seeking sanctuary in the city, and that 175,000 children under the age of five are afflicted with infectious diseases. It also called for a renewed truce and secure access for humanitarian groups.
Following Hamas’s historic October 7 attack on Israel, which claimed the lives of over 1,170 people, the majority of whom were civilians, an AFP tally of Israeli government numbers shows that the bloodiest conflict in Gaza’s history got underway.
According to the health ministry of the Hamas-run enclave, Israel has carried out a retaliatory offensive in Gaza that has killed at least 34,735 Palestinians while vowing to destroy Hamas.
According to the government, minors make up more than 14,000 of that number.
In the event of a truce, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened to deploy ground soldiers against Hamas rebels in Rafah, disregarding objections expressed by the US, other nations, and humanitarian organization’s. – AFP