‘Let the little children come to me…” Matthew 19: 14, Jesus. I guess it’s fair to argue that every war is a war against children. A child is a child, no matter where they are from, and every child must be protected. Children are always the most vulnerable in every conflict. We know from experience that children will never emerge unscathed from war.
The Gaza conflict has seen thousands of children lose one or both parents, their families wiped out, the children maimed for life, traumatised or killed. Unless killed by an assassin’s bullet, those who instruct those reprisals will live a full fat life. Unfortunately, politically driven murderers tends to assassinate the good leaders, not the bad leaders. The bad are usually well protected by a big nation with a more powerful leader.
In Rafah there are graveyards filled with children. It is unimaginable how much worse will be inflicted upon them by more bombing, another Israeli invasion, or starvation. The European hospital is crammed with wounded and dying children – another military offensive will be catastrophic. Rafah is a city of children – some 600,000 of them.
What we witness from the few reporters taking the lives in their own hands, is a gangrene puss-filled puss stain on humanity. James Elder can tell it better; he is Unicef’s global spokesman.
The war against Gaza’s children is forcing many to close their eyes. Nine-year-old Mohamed’s eyes were forced shut, first by the bandages that covered a gaping hole in the back of his head, and second by the coma caused by the blast that hit his family home. He is nine, was nine. Mohamed is now dead.
Over three visits to the European hospital’s ICU in Rafah, Gaza, I saw multiple children occupy the same bed. Each one arriving after a bomb had ripped through their home. Each one dying despite doctors’ immense efforts.
Only a few weeks ago the world was decrying the senseless killing of seven aid workers in a convoy for the World Central Kitchen. It was another grim milestone for Gaza. A week later, a Unicef vehicle was hit, again when trying to reach those in the most desperate need. This week further airstrikes in Rafah have killed more civilian adults and children. But this is Gaza, where outrage over attacks fades amid new emerging tragedies.
From looming famine to soaring death tolls, the latest fear is the much-threatened offensive in Rafah in southern Gaza. Can it get any worse? It always seems to. It has been six months and this war is breaking some of humanity’s darkest records: reports state more than 14,000 children have been killed. But there is no slowing in the fighting’s pace or ferocity. If anything, things are getting worse: with clear promises – threats – that this terrifying trajectory will continue.
Rafah will implode if it is targeted militarily because there are more than 1.4 million civilians already there, suffering dire conditions. Most have had their homes damaged or destroyed. All have had their coping capacity smashed. There is simply nowhere left to go in Gaza.
Water is in desperately short supply, not just for drinking but sanitation. In Rafah there is approximately one toilet for every 850 people. The situation is four times worse for showers. That is, around one shower for every 3,500 people. Try to imagine, as a teenage girl, or elderly man, or pregnant woman, queueing for an entire day just to have a shower.
Rafah is home to what is now Gaza’s largest remaining hospital – the “European hospital”– named as such to honour the European Union that paid for its construction. When I visited in April, a paediatric surgeon, Dr Ghaben, was hunched over another little boy, Mahmmoud. He had massive head trauma from a bomb that had hit his family home. “What did this little boy do?” the doctor asked, a tear forming in his eye. Dr Ghaben was 30 hours into his 36-hour shift. He feared Mahmmoud would be dead by the time he returned for his next shift. He was right.
This is one of many stories from the European hospital, where tens of thousands of civilians desperately seek refuge. New ICUs have been built in a vain attempt to manage the wounded. Why is the European hospital today more important than ever before? Because the health system in Gaza has been systematically destroyed. Today 10 out of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are functioning; and each of those is only partially functioning. And so, at a time when Gaza’s children need medical care like never before, there has never been less available.
On 31 October, Unicef called Gaza a graveyard for children. Last month I saw new graveyards in Rafah being constructed. And filled. Every day the war brings more violent death and destruction. In my 20 years with the United Nations, I have never seen devastation like that I saw in the Gaza Strip cities of Khan Younis and Gaza City. And now we are told to expect the same via an incursion in Rafah.
Upon hearing of the UN security council’s decision to pass a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire (more than a month ago now), hope filled the faces of those in Rafah. One mother told me: “This may be the first night in months that I can promise my daughter she won’t be killed in the night.” But it took only hours for that hope to be obliterated by bombs.
Gaza needs an immediate and long-lasting humanitarian ceasefire. How many times have we said – pleaded for – that? And we must see the release of all hostages, safe and unrestricted access for humanitarian relief, and more crossings for that relief.
People in Gaza are stunned that the horrors continue. In the north of the territory, close to where a Unicef vehicle came under fire last month, a woman clutched my hand and pleaded, over and over, that the world send food, water and medicine. I will never forget how, as I felt her grasp, I tried to explain we were trying, and she continued to plead. Why? Because she assumed the world did not know what was happening in Gaza. Because if the world knew, how could they possibly let this happen?
How, indeed. The world has certainly been warned about Rafah. It remains to be seen how many eyes stay, or are forced, shut. Meanwhile the children in Gaza live a life of terror.
NOTES
James Elder is Chief of Media & External Relations for UNICEF. He has an MA degree in Media and Communications. He has been active in media, publishing and information for more than 15 years, first as a journalist in his native Australia, then as an editor. Before joining UNICEF (in 2002) he wrote for The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, a string of publications abroad, and freelanced for the country’s biggest-selling lifestyle magazines. During his time freelancing, he rode bulls, formula one cars, boxed a round with the world lightweight champion (he still has all his original teeth), and interviewed people from David Beckham to Richard Branson and the Dalai Lama. He then spent six months in India with his TV producer wife, filming and presenting documentaries for Cable TV. He started his career with UNICEF in Angola, arriving six months after a three-decade war ended. There he presided over a strategy to project post-war Angola into the public and donor domain and was a co-author of the country’s ‘Multiple Cluster Survey’ and a fundraising book of human stories from Angola. He has done emergency stints in Darfur, Sudan, Somalia, Kenya and Mozambique. He is married with three children.
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It is horrific and even more horrific to know that both the USA and UK continue to supply the Israeli’s with weapons. I read today of a 16 year old boy shot by an Israeli sniper , what God do these folk worship?
It is truly shocking.
The World has descended into barbarism (once again).
over and over again we see reports about how bad things are in Gaza i thank the reporters.What we do not sed are reports about who in the UK is making decisions who is involved in help given to Israel name the names who is taking legal action to stop them ? Nobody i guess , all too scared the big business leading the Israeli terror campaign will gang up to stop their income streams