The starving children of Gaza
Tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip have fallen victim to the Israeli genocidal aggression since October 7, those who have borne the brunt of the onslaught are children who comprise almost half of the 2.3 million population.
The United Nations has described the Gaza Strip as a graveyard for thousands of children.
The health ministry in Gaza has reported that over 12,000 Palestinian children have been killed in Israeli attacks to date.
That means one Palestinian child killed every 15 minutes, or about one out of every 100 children in the Gaza Strip.
The most horrific scenes are the bombed out buildings where thousands are buried under the rubble, most of whom are presumed dead.
For those children who have survived the Israeli onslaught, at least for now, things couldn't be worse than living without their families. According to UNRWA, around 17,000 children in Gaza are orphaned.
They have to live the rest of their lives, if they are lucky enough to survive, with the trauma of losing their loved ones, and life under the shadow of Israel's crippling blockade.
Israel's genocidal activity is not limited to Gaza alone.
Elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, at least 420 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers. According to the Palestinian health ministry in the West Bank at least 110 of the fatalities were children.
The latest victim of the Israeli aggression in the occupied West Bank was a 10-year-old boy who was shot in the head during an Israeli raid.
Human Rights organizations and aid agencies have raised the alarm over the moral and legal aspects of the military tactics employed by Tel Aviv.
Despite facing mounting criticism for shelling and bombing residential areas leading to high civilian casualties, Israel has so far defied calls for a ceasefire on various fronts as well as an interim order by the International Court of Justice on a genocide case filed against the regime.
Ironically, Israel is still being supplied with lethal weapons despite criticism from several international bodies, including the UN, for the transfer of arms and ammunition which will in all likelihood be used against Gazans.
Investigations have uncovered that Israel has used US made munitions in its strikes on Palestinians.
Despite calls for an end to military support and aid to Israel, its key ally the US reaffirmed on Monday that it will keep providing military assistance to Israel.
So, apparently, American missiles and bombs shall continue to rain down on Gazan children.
There is a more traumatic form of infanticide being perpetrated in Gaza with Israel blocking the delivery of aid required to save children suffering from acute malnutrition.
Children are not only dying from bombs but they are also vulnerable to consequences of the crippling siege. Many Palestinian children have already starved to death in Gaza over the past few days due to the US-Israeli siege.
The United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF, has warned that such deaths will rapidly increase if restrictions on humanitarian aid deliveries continued.
UNICEF Regional Director for Middle East and North Africa Adele Khodr asserted that numerous reported child deaths in Gaza are man-made, predictable, and entirely preventable. The widespread lack of food, safe water, and, medical services, as well as problematic UN humanitarian operations is impacting children and even mothers who are unable to breastfeed their babies, especially in northern Gaza.
A rapidly increasing number of children have been starving to death as the Israeli induced famine gradually takes hold.
According to the United Nations, one child in six below the age of two is already acutely malnourished.
Aid supplies, already sharply curtailed by the regime since the start of the onslaught, have dwindled to barely a trickle over the past month.
Large swathes of the territory are completely cut off from food. The few functioning hospitals remaining in Gaza, already overwhelmed by the wounded, are now filling with malnourished children.
There are cases of severe dehydration and this reflects negatively on the children. The mothers cannot breastfeed their children; we do not have formula milk, and this has led to deaths of children here at the intensive care unit. Also in the nursery, there are numerous deaths.
Palestinian ER Doctor
Since early October, the Tel Aviv regime has cut off the free flow of water, food, fuel, and power, to the Gaza Strip and is placing restrictions on the flow of international aid. Agencies like UNRWA are struggling to help Gazans who are under incessant Israeli bombardment.
Ironically, the United States and other allies of Israel continue to turn a blind eye to the regime's indiscriminate aerial and ground assaults on Palestinians.
Ordinary people, but not statesmen, are horrified by images of dead and wounded Palestinian children and women.
What better proof of these countries being complicit in the Israeli regime's crimes can there be than the fact that they keep providing Tel Aviv with weapons, with which to harm Palestinian women and children, or blocking funds meant to alleviate the suffering of Palestinians.
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