An average of 10 Palestinian children a day are losing
one or both legs, the Commissioner-General of the UN
Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA)
has revealed. “This gives you an idea of the scope of
the type of childhood, a child can have in Gaza,” said
Philippe Lazzarini.
The UN official made his comment during a press
conference at the UN headquarters in Geneva on Tuesday.
The statistic quoted does not include the arms and the
hands that are lost, he pointed out. “Ten per day, that
means around 2,000 children after the more than 260 days
of this brutal war. Moreover, the amputations often take
place in quite horrible conditions, and sometimes
without anaesthesia.”
Lazzarini mentioned a report published by Save the
Children which estimates that “up to 21,000 children are
estimated to be missing” since the beginning of the
attack on the Gaza Strip, either because they were
buried under rubble, captured, buried in unknown graves,
or lost contact with their families and relatives.
Despite the difficulty of collecting and verifying
numbers, Save the Children confirmed that “at least
17,000 children in the Gaza Strip are unaccompanied by
their families, and 4,000 children are missing after
being buried under rubble.”
Lazzarini warned again that UNRWA has cash “until end of
August,” adding that the agency still had “a shortfall
of about $140 million… to bridge to the end of the
year.”
Regarding the situation in the occupied West Bank, he
noted that UNRWA is very concerned about the situation
there, where the Palestinians are facing a “silent war.”
The intensity of the Israeli military operations in
refugee camps in the West Bank has become very evident,
added Lazzarini.
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