Israel Kills One Palestinian Child Every Hour In Gaza – Save The Children.

Press Release: Veritas Press C.I.C.

Author: Kamran Faqir

Article Date Published: 08 Sept 2025 at 19:57 GMT

Category: Middle East | Palestine-Gaza | US-Israel At War

Source(s): Veritas Press C.I.C. | Multi News Agencies

A Death Trap For Children:

Gaza has become the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. According to Save the Children, at least one Palestinian child has been killed every single hour on average since Israel launched its war on the enclave nearly 23 months ago. More than 20,000 children are confirmed dead, a figure humanitarian groups warn is likely an undercount, with thousands more buried under rubble or missing.

“This is a shameful statistic – a horrific new low in a war characterised by a constant stream of them,” said Ahmad Alhendawi, Save the Children’s Regional Director for the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe. “Worst of all, we saw this coming. Systematic attacks on children’s homes, playgrounds, schools and hospitals, starvation by design – the world is doing nothing to stop it.”

The Numbers Behind The Horror:

Data compiled by Gaza’s Government Media Office and cited by Save the Children paints a staggering picture:

  • 1,009 children under the age of one have been killed.
  • 450 babies were born and killed during the war, never surviving infancy.
  • At least 42,011 children were injured, with over 21,000 permanently disabled, according to the Ministry of Health and the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
  • Over 135 children have starved to death since famine was declared in August, part of a wider toll of 387 Palestinians who died of hunger, many of them infants.

Doctors in Gaza’s collapsing health system describe a steady influx of malnourished children. Dr. Mahmoud Abu Salim, a paediatrician in southern Gaza, told Al Jazeera:

“We are treating children whose bodies have wasted away. Babies arrive weighing less than at birth. We give what we can, but without electricity, clean water, or medicine, most don’t survive. This famine is man-made; it is policy, not an accident.”

Starvation As A Weapon:

Human rights organisations have accused Israel of deliberately using hunger as a weapon of war. Save the Children warns that famine in the Gaza Governorate, already at IPC Phase 5 – catastrophic, is poised to spread across the Strip.

The UNICEF estimates that 132,000 children under five face imminent risk of death from acute malnutrition, while at least half of Gaza’s 2.2 million people already face “catastrophic hunger.”

Eyewitnesses describe scenes of desperation around Israeli-controlled aid distribution points. Um Ahmad, a displaced mother in northern Gaza, recounted to The Guardian:

“We waited three hours for flour. Suddenly, soldiers fired. People fell on top of each other, screaming. My neighbour’s son was killed for a bag of bread.”

According to Save the Children, since late May, more than 500 Palestinians have been killed trying to access aid, with children among the victims in over half of those incidents.

A War On Childhood:

Beyond hunger, Gaza’s children are being cut down in airstrikes, drone attacks, and artillery fire. Nearly every school has been hit. The UN estimates 97% of schools and 94% of hospitals have been damaged or destroyed.

Children are disproportionately vulnerable to blast injuries. “They are seven times more likely to die from explosions than adults,” Save the Children noted.

One of the latest incidents occurred on September 2, when five children were killed while fetching water in an area designated a “safe zone.”

Conclusion: A War on Children, A War on Humanity.

What is unfolding in Gaza is not merely a war, it is the systematic destruction of a people’s future through the deliberate annihilation of its children. The statistics from Save the Children, UNICEF, and Gaza’s health authorities are not just numbers; they are evidence. They reveal a policy of extermination disguised as warfare, where homes, hospitals, schools, and aid queues are turned into killing grounds.

The killing of one child every hour is not collateral damage. It is the central feature of a campaign that couples relentless bombardment with starvation by design. International law is unambiguous: collective punishment, targeting civilians, and the use of hunger as a weapon are war crimes and, when directed at the destruction of a people, constitute genocide. The International Court of Justice has already warned of a “plausible risk of genocide.” What more proof is required when children are dying at such a pace that Gaza’s youngest generation is being erased before the world’s eyes?

The failure of powerful governments, or, profoundly, aided and abetted above all by the United States and its allies (the United Kingdom, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Germany, Europe, etc), to stop the killing or even allow meaningful humanitarian access exposes their complicity. Their weapons, funding, and diplomatic cover make them partners in the annihilation of Palestinian children. Each hour that passes without decisive action is another hour in which the international system fails in its most basic obligation: to prevent genocide.

History will record this moment with unforgiving clarity. Just as Rwanda and Srebrenica became shorthand for shame and failure, Gaza will stand as the place where the world watched the systematic destruction of children and did nothing. The test now is not only whether the slaughter of Gaza’s children can be stopped, but whether international law and human conscience mean anything at all.

If the killing of a child every hour cannot move the world to act, then what crime ever will?

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