The last report by the United Nations secretary-general on the rights of children in conflicts – published in June 2023, four months before Israel’s war on Gaza began – recorded nearly 4,000 confirmed cases, of which almost half were of Israeli forces denying aid to children in the enclave.
“Data gathered for our forthcoming 2024 report shows we are on target to witness a shocking increase of the incidents of the denial of humanitarian access globally,” Virginia Gamba, the secretary-general’s special representative for children and armed conflict, told the UN Security Council (UNSC) on Wednesday.
The UN has, since Israel’s war on Gaza began, repeatedly denounced restrictions Israel has placed on aid entering the enclave.
“As a result of these constraints, children cannot access age-appropriate nutritious food or medical services and have less than two to three litres of water per day,” UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Ted Chaiban told the UNSC.
“The consequences have been clear,” Chaiban said, noting that one in three children in northern Gaza under two years old suffer from acute malnutrition and that this figure “has more than doubled in the last two months”
Source: AlJazeera