UNICEF Gaza city report

Geneva (dpa) — The UN children’s organization UNICEF warned that “childhood cannot survive” in Gaza City, as Israel prepares to capture the metropolis amid its war with Palestinian militant organization Hamas.

“The world is sounding the alarm about what an intensified military offensive in Gaza City could bring – a catastrophe for the almost 1 million people who remain there,” UNICEF spokeswoman Tess Ingram said in a Thursday briefing.

The Israeli military is currently preparing to capture Gaza City, the largest city in the embattled Palestinian territory. Thousands of reservists were called up on Tuesday.

“This unthinkable is not looming – it is already here. The escalation is underway,” Ingram said, as she detailed the situation she encountered in the Gaza Strip over the previous nine days.

“Malnutrition and famine are weakening children’s bodies as displacement strips them of shelter and care, and bombardments threaten their every move. This is what famine in a war zone looks like and it was everywhere I looked in Gaza City,” Ingram said.

The UNICEF official said the situation in the Palestinian territory was “not accidental. It is the direct consequence of choices that have turned Gaza City and indeed the entire Strip into a place where people’s lives are under attack, from every angle, every day.”

“Palestinian life is being dismantled here, steadily but surely,” she said, calling on Israel to “review its rules of engagement to ensure children are protected” and allow humanitarian aid in as well as calling on Hamas to release all hostages.

Israel has largely reduced the Gaza Strip to rubble as it fights Hamas in the Palestinian territory.

The war was triggered by the massacre by Hamas and other extremists from the Gaza Strip in Israel on October 7, 2023, when some 1,200 people were killed and about 250 abducted. Of the remaining 48 hostages held in Gaza, about 20 are believed to still be alive.

Since then, more than 64,200 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the local health authority controlled by Hamas, in figures that the UN considers credible.

Criticism of Israel is mounting given the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza and as Israel expands its military operations there.