– In recent weeks, children in Gaza have experienced being driven to flee, losing their entire family, being injured, experiencing their whole lives being torn apart. That’s what Elizabeth White, director of communications for Save the Children in Palestine, says. She sits in Jordan’s capital Amman, 145 kilometers northeast of Gaza and a two-hour drive from the West Bank. From there she receives daily reports about hunger, distress and flight. – It is difficult to put into words the mental challenges children in Gaza face today, she says over the phone. During the 100 days of the war, more than 10,000 children have been killed in Israeli airstrikes and ground operations in the Gaza Strip. Save the Children refers to figures from the health authorities in Gaza, which the organization has long relied on. Children make up almost half of the roughly 24,000 Palestinians killed since 7 October. The number of people killed is among the highest seen in war and conflict in recent times. There are as many children as there are in a larger Norwegian city. – It is sad to say that the number will already look different tomorrow, because these numbers are updated daily, says White. A Palestinian boy charges his phone outside a hospital in Rafah. Photo: Reuters Blames Hamas news has asked the Israeli army (IDF) questions about how they react to the number of children killed. The IDF does not answer the questions directly, but refers to an overview of Israel’s humanitarian efforts, which is updated regularly. Here are the questions news asked the IDF news sent this request to the IDF: “More than 10,000 children have now been killed in the bombings in Gaza, according to figures from the health authorities in Gaza. The figures are recognized by Save the Children and several other humanitarian organisations. The UN operates with similar figures, and UN Secretary Antonio Guterres has said that Gaza is becoming a graveyard for children. Please see our questions below. What does the IDF think about the numbers and the fact that so many children have been killed in Gaza since October 7? Does the IDF differentiate between civilians and Hamas fighters when carrying out attacks in Gaza? What is the IDF doing to distinguish between civilians and Hamas fighters in the attacks and bombing of Gaza? 2023 was the deadliest year for children living in the West Bank. What has the IDF done to protect the children living in the West Bank from attack? Aid organizations such as Doctors Without Borders and Save the Children are struggling to get enough emergency aid into Gaza to help people, and especially children. Does the IDF think this is a problem? If not, why not? Would the IDF support a ceasefire to help children in Gaza who need urgent medical care? Recently, Hamas and Israel entered into an emergency aid agreement for Israeli hostages and Palestinian civilians in Gaza. What does the IDF think will be the result of the agreement? Here it says that Israel is at war with Hamas, which they call a terrorist organisation, but that Israel at the same time recognizes the suffering of the civilian population in Gaza. They still believe that Hamas is to blame. – The cause of much of this suffering is Hamas’s actions as the governing authority in Gaza and the group’s military practices, says the statement from the Israeli government. – Israel has undertaken, and continues to undertake, significant efforts to alleviate the humanitarian situation in Gaza and is working closely with the international community to maintain the efforts, it further states. At the same time, the UN Secretary General has warned that Gaza is about to become a graveyard for children. Lost the whole family The war has meant that almost all the children in Gaza have fled. This corresponds to just under a million children, according to figures from the UN. Many of them have lost their entire families. No one has a clear answer to the number of orphans because countless children and parents have still not been accounted for. Before Christmas, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor estimated that around 25,000 children in the Gaza Strip have lost one or both of their parents. – Never seen anything like it So many children in Gaza have become orphans that a new abbreviation has crept into Doctors Without Borders: WCNSF, which stands for “wounded child, no surviving family”. – It’s a category we haven’t had before, says Katrin Glatz Brubakk. She is a child psychologist and works for the Doctors Without Borders team which is currently stationed in Jenin, in the north of the West Bank. – It is impossible to answer how we are going to solve the problem with both orphaned children and the extremely traumatized adults who will struggle to take care of their children, even if they are alive, for the rest of their lives, says Brubakk. – This is work that is impossible to see an end to because the actions that take place are so extreme that we have not seen anything like it before, she adds. Don’t know who is responsible for orphans Nobody knows what the future of the familyless children will look like. Or who will be in charge of them. – This probably requires an absolutely extreme boost from the international community, says Brubakk. Katrin Glatz Brubakk is stationed in Jenin in the West Bank to assist in the ever-worsening conflict in Palestinian territory. Here she is during a previous assignment in 2019. Photo: NTB Elizabeth White in Save the Children also thinks the question of responsibility is difficult to answer, as the situation is today. An overwhelming challenge is the lack of an overview of how many children actually need help. – But there will be a combined effort between the aid organizations and the authorities to try and find the best solutions for the children, says White. – We must try and support the children in what is in their best interest. Not allowed in to help Before the war broke out, there were orphanages and various support networks for children in Gaza. But these have now been completely torn away, according to White. – The organizations are clearly not in operation and it is unclear whether they still exist at all, she says. Hundreds of thousands are starving in Gaza, which faces a famine disaster. Usually around 500 trailers with food arrive there daily. Now some days there are no cars at all due to the Israeli blockade around Gaza. Here, children stand in the food queue on 16 January. Photo: NTB / Reuters Another challenge is that the acts of war and restrictions prevent the aid forces from coming in to help the children in Gaza. – Our aid work, but also that of local aid organisations, has gone straight out the window. We don’t have the chance to help the children at the level they need at all, says White. – We are trying to get more aid workers into Gaza, but we are not getting in, we are being stopped by the military operations and at the checkpoints, she says. Nearly 2 million, half of them children, face critical levels of hunger in Gaza, according to the United Nations. Photo: Reuters On Tuesday, Israel and Hamas agreed on an emergency aid agreement for Gaza. The agreement will include emergency aid for Palestinian civilians and medicine for Israeli hostages. But it remains to be seen what effect the agreement will have. Without a ceasefire, aid will always be limited, White points out. Cease fire the only way out – We need a cease fire. That’s the only thing that will help. Both we and other aid organizations have been asking for this for weeks now, she says. There have been several attempts to force a ceasefire in the war between Hamas and Israel. But the last time an immediate ceasefire was proposed in the UN Security Council, the US used its veto power to stop the proposal. The US representative in the UN Security Council, Robert A. Wood, voted against an immediate ceasefire on 8 December last year. Photo: CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP White therefore encourages Norway, together with other states, to use its international duty to try to force a ceasefire in the conflict between Israel and Palestine. – There are clear duties, also for third-party countries such as Norway, to use all diplomatic measures at their disposal to ensure that the parties in a conflict comply with the laws and rules that apply in war and conflict, says White. Save the Children believes that Norway must use its diplomatic resources to demand a ceasefire. Here is Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide together with Palestine’s Foreign Minister Riyad Najeeb al-Maliki when the latter visited Oslo before Christmas. Photo: Stian Lysberg Solum / NTB The UN has said since the end of October that no place in Gaza is safe. – If international law was actually followed, there would be safe places in Gaza as well, says White. – There would be schools under protection, there would be safe zones, there would be places where children and families could seek safety. Now there are no such places, she adds.
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– Cease fire is the only thing that will help – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
