Not even 30 seconds had passed since the end of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas this Friday at 7 a.m. (one less in Spanish peninsular time) when a rocket began “tracing its trajectory in the skies of Gaza,” reported he. Telephone from a location that does not require the south of the Palestinian territory James Elder, spokesman for the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef). This Australian aid worker “immediately” ran to Nasser Hospital, the main one in southern Gaza. There, the faces of “traumatized” people who were already living in “terrible conditions” and “wildly overcrowded” once again showed “the return of death and fear, everyone’s worst nightmare,” said the UNICEF boss. For Elder, what is happening again in Gaza after the brief pause of a week of ceasefire is “a war against children” that is “spreading.”
The Unicef spokesman points to figures from the Palestinian enclave’s health ministry that show more than 6,000 minors have been massacred by Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip, almost half of the more than 15,000 people who have died in the strip since the war began seven weeks ago. The data was confirmed this Thursday by the United Nations, which considers it credible. “Everyone knows these numbers now. We have reports of 6,000 children murdered. Unicef is a non-political and impartial organization, but let’s look at these numbers: these 6,000 children [muertos] They show that this war is devastating,” says Elder.
Doaa Ulyan, a 33-year-old Gaza refugee in Rafah with her husband and two children aged 10 and 8, also finds the situation in Gaza “frightening”. He explained on WhatsApp that Israel had not stopped bombing since 7 a.m., “even more than before.” The woman, originally from Gaza City, fled like hundreds of thousands of her fellow citizens to the south of the Palestinian enclave when Israel ordered the population to move there on October 12th. About 1.7 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents now live in the southern region.
Shortly after the ceasefire expired, the Israeli army littered the southern part of the enclave with leaflets. In it, he ordered another transfer to the Gaza Strip, this time towards Rafah on the border with Egypt, the city where Ulyan and his family are seeking refuge. But this area also came under constant bombardment once the Israeli offensive resumed.
“They told us to go south, and we did, and then they started bombing like crazy,” this Gazan continued. “The massacres shown in the images from Gaza are sufficient evidence of the atrocities committed against innocent civilians. We are waiting for the world to do something to protect us, but we have no hope left and can only ask God to protect us,” Ulyan said.
The Gaza Health Ministry has raised the death toll from this Friday’s Israeli bombings to at least 178. The nearly 600 wounded who have been registered by the health authorities in the Gaza Strip can only rely on a health system that the war has “brought to its knees,” complained the UNICEF spokesman.
Join EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without restrictions.
Subscribe to
A group of people surround the covered bodies of several victims (some children) in the town of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip after exchanges of fire resumed between Israel and the Islamist group Hamas. Anas Baba (EFE)
If the international community “fails to act,” Elder assured, it would be “a green light for more children to be murdered.” The UN official finds it “disheartening that there are so many people who are comfortable with what is happening in Gaza.” At Nasser Hospital, where he went after Israel resumed its attacks on Friday, “the children were absolutely terrified. Every single child in Gaza is going to need spiritual support, and now they can’t get it until this war ends. 1.1 million kids stay on the Strip.”
The lives of many of these minors in the Gaza Strip have changed “forever,” said the UNICEF spokesman. In the Palestinian territory, according to Gaza health authorities cited by this humanitarian worker, “there are about 2,000 children with amputations, like little Sharma, one year old, who lost her right leg and right arm.”
“Whoever has the power to do this has to stop it. The longer it takes [esta guerra], the deeper the scars will be. We will not be able to begin the search for healing until these atrocities end,” Elder said. Children who two months ago were perhaps “sitting in their rooms in front of the computer” now have to look in fear at a sky from which “bombs are raining”.
“We have nowhere to run.”
From Khan Yunis, Jalil Abu Shamaleh, 53 years old and former director of the human rights NGO Addameer, sent this newspaper this Friday several WhatsApp audios in which the incessant roar of fighter jets and the hum of drones could be heard. This Gaza Strip also claimed that the bombs had not stopped falling since seven in the morning. It was four o’clock in the afternoon in Gaza at the time (an hour less in mainland Spain).
“People are afraid. They saw too many people killed before the ceasefire. Most Gazans don’t dare go out. You don’t know who the next target might be. Those who set out do so because they have to meet an urgent need. [Los israelíes] “They told us to leave, but we have nowhere to run,” he said.
My mother tells me that the only option left is to accept death. It doesn’t matter if we move or not, every minute is our last. They say leave Khan Younis to Rafah and then hit Rafah. We don’t know where to go. If we die, at least we die in the house and not on the street…
– Jehan Alfarra (@j_alfarra) December 1, 2023
The town of Khan Yunis, where Shamaleh is seeking refuge, is among those that Israel has ordered to be evacuated in its leaflets, but some Gazans who sought safety there no longer want to flee. “My mother tells me that we only have one option: to accept death. It doesn’t matter if we move or not, at any moment it could be the last time. They say let’s leave Khan Yunis and go to Rafah, and then they attack Rafah. We can’t go anywhere. If we die, at least we die at home and not on the streets,” Gaza journalist Jehan Alfarra said in a tweet this Friday.
Follow all international information on Facebook and Xor in our weekly newsletter.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_