The UN agency says surviving children “don't even have the energy to cry” as famine looms over the besieged and bombed enclave for months.
Israel has killed more than 13,000 children in Gaza since October 7, while others suffer from severe malnutrition and “don't even have the energy to cry”, says the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
“Thousands more have been injured or we cannot even determine where they are. “They may be trapped under the rubble… We haven't seen that death rate among children in almost any other conflict in the world,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell told CBS News on Sunday.
“I have been in wards of children suffering from severe anemia and malnutrition, the whole ward is absolutely quiet. Because children, babies… they don't even have the energy to cry.”
Russell said there were “very big bureaucratic challenges” in moving trucks to Gaza for aid and assistance as famine stalks more than two million Palestinians since Israel's “genocidal” war began.
Furthermore, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), one in three children under the age of two in northern Gaza is currently suffering from acute malnutrition. The agency also warned that famine was looming in the besieged enclave that has faced relentless Israeli bombing for more than five months.
International criticism of Israel has increased over the war's death toll, the famine crisis in Gaza and accusations of blocking aid deliveries to the enclave.
On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated his threat of a ground attack on Rafah, the city bordering Egypt where more than a million Palestinians have taken refuge.
“No international pressure will prevent us from achieving all the objectives of the war: eliminating Hamas, releasing all our hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel,” Netanyahu said in a video released by his office.
“For this, we will also operate in Rafah,” he said.
Since October 7, Israel's military campaign has killed at least 31,645 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, and displaced nearly two million of its residents.
The Israeli operation has also given rise to accusations of genocide, which are being investigated by the UN International Court of Justice.
Israel has repeatedly denied accusations of genocide and emphasized that it is acting in self-defense after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that it says killed more than 1,130 people and took more than 200 captive.
