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SvennoJ 6 days ago
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Joy as two Palestinian children reunite with their parents in Gaza

The UN’s children agency (UNICEF) says it has reunited two Palestinian girls with their parents in Gaza after they were separated amid Israel’s war on the enclave.

The agency said the sisters, Sama, 12, and Lama, 11, had stayed in north Gaza amid Israeli bombings while the parents were moved south. They were reunited in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza after more than a year of separation.

Thus far, UNICEF says it has managed to reunite more than 60 children with their parents. The agency estimates that 17,000 children are unaccompanied or separated from their parents.

Watch the moment Sama and Lama reunite with their mother below:


Gaza parents doing everything possible to warm children

It’s a cold morning in Gaza as families are still caught in the grip of this harsh weather that continues to hit every makeshift tent camp across the Strip. Palestinians are having to endure freezing temperatures.

Children are the most vulnerable; their small bodies are unable to withstand the deep chill. Many have been struggling to cope with respiratory illnesses and disease, including diarrhoea.

Parents have been doing everything possible to shield their children, burning whatever they can find including wood, plastic sheets, and scraps of debris to give them some sort of heat.

The makeshift tents they are living in are no longer usable. They’ve been made from plastic sheeting or torn fabric that provides little protection against the biting cold.



‘Parents wade through waist-deep water to collect their dead’

Dr Tanya Haj-Hassan, a paediatric intensive care physician who has worked in Gaza, says severe malnutrition among Palestinians is contributing to rising hypothermia deaths among children.

“I’m watching children die in every possible way whether it’s violence, cold, hunger, disease – all directly as a consequence of a carefully orchestrated Israeli military campaign that has been enabled by the United States and other countries that are turning a deaf ear and blind eye,” she told Al Jazeera.

“We’re watching as parents wade through waist-deep water to collect their dead.”

Haj-Hassan denounced the international community for its failure to stop Israel’s devastating war.

“I struggle for words to describe how horrific the situation has become and how deaf the world has become to repeated cries from humanitarian workers, and mostly from Gazans themselves. They have documented on a daily basis their own genocide and have been killed for doing so.”


Israel’s allies ‘allowing Gaza to be destroyed with impunity’: MSF

Paula Gil, Spain president of Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, shared her concerns about the fast-deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza after her recent visit.

“Gaza today is a death trap. Families are surviving in makeshift shelters made of wood, plastic, and mattresses. Now the cold and the storms have arrived. How will they face the winter in these conditions?” she said.

“This does not happen in a vacuum. The hypocrisy and complicity of Israel’s allies is allowing the social fabric of Gaza to be destroyed with impunity. There are no more squares, no more schools, no more places for children to play or families to gather.

“There is no future. There is no hope. In Gaza, humanity is being destroyed and we cannot look away.”