UNRWA chief: Gaza has become a graveyard for children
The head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, has used the occasion of World Children’s Day to make a plea on X for Palestinian children.
He reminded people that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted by the UN General Assembly more than three decades ago today, in 1989.
“Today, the rights of Palestinian children are violated day in, day out,” Lazzarini continued. “[In Gaza,] they are being killed, injured, forced to flee and deprived of safety, learning and play.”
“In the occupied West Bank, children live in fear and anxiety. Since October last year, more than 170 were killed there while others are losing their childhood in Israeli detention centres.”
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 17,400 children since last October.
Three decades ago, the world made a commitment to respect & uphold children’s rights by adopting the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Today, the rights of Palestinian children are violated day in, day out. #Gaza has become a graveyard for children. They are being killed,… pic.twitter.com/XeRJSKDJbq
— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) November 20, 2024
UK legislator likens Israel’s targeting of Gaza’s children to a ‘warped video game’
Patricia Ferguson told the UK parliament that hearing the testimony of British surgeon Nizam Mamode, who had volunteered at a hospital in Gaza, “was something that I do not think any of us who were present will ever forget”.
She said Mamode had “demonstrated the symmetrical puncture wounds on a dead child’s body – wounds in the region of the body’s major arteries that were too precise to have been the work of a human sniper. They were the work of drones targeted at innocent civilians, and in this case, a child”.
She added, “For me, it was the cold calculation of using machines to kill children, as though it was some kind of warped video game, that was the most disturbing aspect of Professor Mamode’s presentation.”
The legislator from the governing Labour Party went on to say she hoped the UK would support an upcoming UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DCV7cz6MZUS
(Video not available in Canada at least, can't see it)
