UNICEF says Gaza world’s ‘most dangerous place’ for children

UNITED NATIONS/GAZA/OCCUPIED JERSUALEM: The head of the United Nations children’s agency on Wednesday called the besieged Gaza Strip “the most dangerous place in the world to be a child,” and said that the hard-won truce deal between Israel and Hamas was not enough to save their lives.

UNICEF’s executive director Catherine Russell told the UN Security Council that over 5,300 children have reportedly been killed in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel, accounting for 40 percent of the deaths.

“This is unprecedented,” said Russell, who had just returned from a trip to southern Gaza. “I am haunted by what I saw and heard.”

Russell welcomed a deal reached Wednesday by Israel and Hamas to free hostages and pause ferocious fighting and bombardment in Gaza.

Some 240 people – ranging from infants to the elderly – were taken captive during the October 7 attack by Hamas that killed about 1,200 in Israel, mostly civilians, according to Israeli authorities.

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But Russell said that a pause is not enough and called for “an urgent humanitarian ceasefire to immediately put a stop to this carnage.”

“For children to survive…, for humanitarian workers to stay and effectively deliver…, humanitarian pauses are simply not enough,” she said.

Russell said that an additional 1,200 children are believed to remain under the rubble of bombed-out buildings or are otherwise unaccounted for.

“In addition to bombs, rockets, and gunfire, Gaza’s children are at extreme risk from catastrophic living conditions,” Russell added.

“One million children – or all children inside the territory – are now food insecure, facing what could soon become a catastrophic nutrition crisis.”

UNICEF estimates that acute malnutrition in children could increase by nearly 30% in Gaza over the next months.

Also addressing the Security Council, the head of the United Nations Population Fund, Natalia Kanem, drew attention to the plight of Gaza’s pregnant women, with some 5,500 expected to deliver babies under appalling conditions in the coming month.

“At a moment when new life is beginning, what should be a moment of joy is overshadowed by death and destruction, horror and fear,” said Kanem.

Israel, Hamas agree first truce, 50 hostages to go free in swap

Israel and Hamas agreed on Wednesday to a ceasefire in Gaza for at least four days, to let in aid and release at least 50 hostages captured by Hamas in exchange for at least 150 Palestinians jailed in Israel.**

The first truce in a brutal near seven-week-old war, reached after mediation by Qatar, was hailed around the world as a sign of progress that could ease the suffering of Gaza’s civilians and bring more Israeli hostages home.

Israel said the ceasefire could be extended further, as long as more hostages were freed.

Hamas and allied groups captured around 240 hostages when gunmen rampaged through southern Israeli towns on Oct. 7. Previously, Hamas had released just four.

The official start time for the truce is expected to be announced within 24 hours, with the first hostages to go free on Thursday.

A statement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said 50 women and children would be released over four days at a rate of at least 10 per day.

Beyond that, the truce could be extended as long as an additional ten hostages were freed per day.

It made no mention of the release of Palestinian detainees, but Israel’s justice ministry published a list of 300 names of Palestinian prisoners who could be freed.

“Israel’s government is committed to return all the hostages home. Tonight, it approved the proposed deal as a first stage to achieving this goal,” said the government statement.

Hamas said the initial 50 hostages would be released in exchange for 150 Palestinian women and children held in Israeli jails.

Hundreds of trucks of humanitarian, medical and fuel supplies would enter Gaza, while Israel would halt all air sorties over southern Gaza and maintain a daily six-hour daytime no-fly window in the north, it said.

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Israel has placed Gaza under siege and relentless bombardment since the Hamas attack, which killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli tallies.

Since then, more than 14,000 Gazans have been killed, around 40% of them children, according to medical officials in the Hamas-ruled territory, figures deemed reliable by the United Nations.

Qatar’s chief negotiator in ceasefire talks, Minister of State at the Foreign Ministry Mohammed Al-Khulaifi, told Reuters the truce meant there would be “no attack whatsoever. No military movements, no expansion, nothing”.

Qatar hopes the deal “will be a seed to a bigger agreement and a permanent cease of fire. And that’s our intention,” he said.

Pending the start of the truce there was no let-up in fighting.

As morning broke, smoke from explosions could be seen rising above northern Gaza in live Reuters video from across the fence.

Israel’s military released footage of soldiers shooting in narrow alleyways and said it had carried out air strikes.

Its “forces continue to operate within the Strip’s territory to destroy terrorist infrastructure, eliminate terrorists and locate weaponry”, it said.

‘What truce can there be?’

The truce deal is a first small step towards peace in the most violent ruction of the 75-year-old Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The past seven weeks have shocked the world because of the suffering of civilians on both sides, beginning with the killing of Israeli families in their homes and continuing with destruction rained down on Gaza, home to 2.3 million people.

“What truce can there be after what happened to us? We are all are dead people,” said Mona, a woman in Gaza whose nieces and nephews were among those killed by an Israeli air strike that hit the home of the Seyam family.

“This will not bring back what we lost, will not heal our hearts or make up for the tears we shed.”

Kamelia Hoter Ishay, whose 13-year-old granddaughter Gali Tarashansky is believed held in Gaza, said she would not believe reports of a deal until she got a call that the girl was freed.

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“And then I’ll know that it’s really over and I can breathe a sigh of relief and say that’s it, it’s over,” she said.

Both Israel and Hamas said that the truce would not halt their broader missions: “We are at war and we will continue the war until we achieve all our goals. To destroy Hamas, return all our hostages and ensure that no entity in Gaza can threaten Israel,” Netanyahu said in a recorded message.

Hamas said in its statement: “As we announce the striking of a truce agreement, we affirm that our fingers remain on the trigger, and our victorious fighters will remain on the look-out to defend our people and defeat the occupation.”

Still there was some hope of a step towards broader peace. “We hope the truce will happen and there will be good solutions, and we hope people will live peacefully, return to their homes and workplaces with stability,” said Abu Jihad Shameya, a displaced man from north Gaza who had taken refuge in the main southern city Khan Younis. “May God not prolong this hardship.”

Foreigners among those to go free

US President Joe Biden was among international leaders who welcomed the deal.

Three Americans, including a 3-year-old girl whose parents were killed during Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, are expected to be among the hostages to be released, a senior US official said.

More than half the hostages hold foreign and dual citizenship from some 40 countries, Israel has said.

Gaza sanitation ‘perfect storm for tragedy’: UN

Implementing the deal must wait for 24 hours to give Israeli citizens the chance to ask the Supreme Court to block the release of Palestinian prisoners, Israeli media reported.

Qadura Fares, head of the Commission for Prisoners’ Affairs in the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, told Reuters that among more than 7,800 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel were about 85 women and 350 minors.

The armed wing of the Palestinian group Islamic Jihad, which participated in the Oct. 7 raid with Hamas, said late on Tuesday that one of the Israeli hostages it has held since the raid had died.