{"id":235645,"date":"2026-01-13T13:14:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T13:14:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/235645\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T13:14:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T13:14:06","slug":"gaza-a-ceasefire-that-still-kills-children-is-not-enough-says-unicef","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/235645\/","title":{"rendered":"Gaza: A ceasefire that still kills children is not enough, says UNICEF"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThat\u2019s roughly a girl or a boy killed here every day during a ceasefire,\u201d UNICEF<\/a> spokesperson James Elder told reporters in Geneva.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese children are killed from airstrikes, drone strikes, including suicide drones,\u201d he said, speaking from Gaza City. \u201cThey\u2019re killed from tank shelling, they\u2019re killed from live ammunition, they\u2019re killed from [remote-controlled] quadcopters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Elder pointed out that more children have also died of hypothermia in the last few days, as harsh winter conditions expose the most vulnerable Gazans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sheer cold kills six children<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve now gone to six children who died of hypothermia just this winter,\u201d he said. \u201cI wish I could take a camera and show you 30, 40-kilometre [per hour] winds ripping through tents on the beach. It\u2019s bitterly cold, it\u2019s bitterly wet.\u201d<\/p>\n

The UNICEF spokesperson stressed that the ceasefire has allowed \u201cgenuine progress\u201d in primary healthcare, with UNICEF and partners setting up the first health clinics in the north of the Strip and expanding immunization services.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But desperately needed medical evacuations of children remain at a standstill.<\/p>\n

Mr. Elder noted \u201cno noticeable improvement\u201d both on approvals to get children with life-threatening injuries out of Gaza and in convincing more host countries take in the young patients.<\/p>\n

He said that in his latest mission to the enclave, he spoke to many children and families denied evacuation despite completing an arduous, formal process.<\/p>\n

These included a nine-year-old with shrapnel lodged in his eye who \u201cwill lose sight in an eye, maybe both\u201d, a girl in Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City who \u201cmay well die\u201d and another child whose leg needs amputating. \u201cAll three of those are absolute candidates for medical evacuation; all three of those have so far been denied,\u201d Mr. Elder explained.<\/p>\n

Before war erupted in Gaza following Hamas-led attacks in Israel on 7 October 2023, between 50 and 100 patients were evacuated from the enclave every day, according to the UN World Health Organization (WHO<\/a>).<\/p>\n

In an alert on Tuesday, the agency warned that\u00a0extensive clearance procedures by the Israeli authorities continue to cause delays to deliveries of medicine and food.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSome essential medical items are classified as \u2018dual-use\u2019 and denied entry,\u201d WHO said in a post on X, in reference to goods that are primarily intended for civilian use but which the Israeli authorities believe could be diverted by Hamas or other militant groups for military purposes.<\/p>\n

International NGO ban looms<\/p>\n

The UNICEF spokesperson also highlighted the dangers of a recent Israeli ban on international NGOs, which will come into effect in the coming month and mean \u201cblocking life-saving assistance\u201d, he alleged. Mr. Elder also stressed the importance of allowing international media into the enclave, which has not been granted despite the ceasefire.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere needs to be a lot more pressure on allowing international journalists to come in,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is my seventh mission [to Gaza] and every time I see the 360-degree devastation, flattening of homes, my jaw drops.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is absolutely as staggering yesterday as it was the first time I saw it more than two years ago,\u201d he insisted.<\/p>\n

Mr. Elder warned that two years of war have \u201cleft life for Gaza’s children unimaginably hard,\u201d explaining that \u201cthe psychological damage remains untreated, and it’s becoming deeper and harder to heal, the longer this goes on\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cA ceasefire that slows the bombs is progress, but one that still buries children is not enough,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThat\u2019s roughly a girl or a boy killed here every day during a ceasefire,\u201d UNICEF spokesperson James Elder…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228030,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-235645","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}