UNICEF says about 17,000 children in Gaza are unaccompanied or have been separated from their families during the conflict.
Nearly all children in the enclave require mental health support, the UN agency added.
“They present symptoms like extremely high levels of persistent anxiety, loss of appetite. They can’t sleep, they have emotional outbursts, or they panic every time they hear a bombing,” said Jonathan Crickx, UNICEF’s chief of communication for the occupied Palestinian territories.
“Before this war, UNICEF was considering already that 500,000 children were already in need of mental health and psychosocial support in Gaza. Today, we estimate almost all children are in need of that support, and that’s more than one million child.”