Israel plan to seize more of Gaza means 'more children will suffer': UN
The United Nations warned on Friday that an Israeli plan to take control of 70 per cent of Gaza will increase suffering among children already hit by the impacts of severe overcrowding. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the military to take control of more territory in the Gaza Strip, flouting the terms of a fragile ceasefire that took effect in October. He said the military had controlled 50pc of the Palestinian territory under the terms of the ceasefire, then advanced to take over 60pc. โMy directive is to move toโฆ 70pc,โ he said. The United Nations childrenโs agency Unicef warned that this would deepen the health crisis among children in the territory, suffering from acute lack of food, water and hygiene. Israel controls the flow of aid into the territory along with all entry points into Gaza, which has been under an Israeli blockade since 2007. Even before Israelโs assault in Gaza that began in 2023, the territory was already very densely populated. Now โpeople have been crammed into around 40pc of the spaceโ, Unicef spokesman Salim Oweis told reporters in Geneva, speaking from Gaza. People there were left โsheltering among broken buildings, rubble and mounting solid wasteโ, he said, adding โthere is no accessible space left to clearโ the waste. โThe effects of this are now widely apparent: children with respiratory infections, acute watery diarrhoea, and more than half of all households reporting skin diseases.โ Rats biting children โFleas, lice and scabies are commonplace,โ Oweis said, also pointing to numerous cases of rats biting young children and even babies. Oweis said a woman named Hind โhasnโt slept since her four-year-old daughter, Masa, was bitten by a rat during the nightโ. โLike many families, they sheltered wherever they could, in their case, the second floor of a building block where sewage water leaks through the ceilings, and rodents crawl through the cracks in the building and climb the exposed pipes,โ he said. Rats are not the only menace. Oweis said he had spoken with another woman named Amani whose seven-year-old daughter had โdeveloped deep lesions and sores on her head, back and legs due to a bacterial infectionโ. He warned that โincreasing numbers of children are requiring hospitalisation, all without a single fully functioning hospital across Gazaโ. The situation was โdireโ, Oweis said, noting the overcrowding was already โcreating more spread of diseases, straining the systems and of course cutting โฆ servicesโ. If Israel takes control of even more land, he warned, that โmeans that we will lose access to some of the service points, but also [to] some hard to reach places [where children and families are livingโ. โThis will just mean that more children will suffer,โ he said. The Palestinian foreign ministry slammed Netanyahuโs announcement as โa serious violation of the foundations of the ceasefireโ. Since then, Gaza has been gripped by daily violence, with Israel killing more than 900 people there, according to Gazaโs health ministry in the territory, whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations. They are among the over 72,800 people killed in Gaza since the start of the assault, according to the health ministry. The October 7, 2023 attack that sparked the genocide, meanwhile, resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people on the Israeli side, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.