Gaza (Union)
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) announced that 17,000 children in the Gaza Strip have become homeless or separated from their families during the war, calling on the international community not to abandon the children of the Strip, noting that their situation is getting darker daily.
UNICEF said yesterday that its estimates indicate that 17,000 children in Gaza have become homeless or separated from their families during the conflict, and it is believed that almost all children in the Strip are in need of mental health support.
Director of Communications at UNICEF in the Palestinian Territories, Jonathan Krekes, said: “Children show symptoms such as extremely high levels of constant anxiety, loss of appetite and cannot sleep, or they experience bouts of emotional agitation or panic every time they hear the sound of bombing.”
He continued: “Before this war, UNICEF already considered that 500,000 children were in need of mental health services and psychological support in Gaza. Today, our estimates indicate that almost all children need this support, that is, more than one million children.”
He called for a ceasefire so that UNICEF could conduct an appropriate census of unaccompanied or separated children, identify their relatives, and provide mental health support.
In turn, Katherine Russell, Executive Director of UNICEF, called for not abandoning the children of Gaza, saying that “their situation is getting darker day after day.”
Russell said in a blog post on the “X” platform yesterday, “The situation of children in Gaza is getting darker day by day,” and she added: “The world cannot abandon them.”
The Director of UNICEF published with the blog a statement of the United Nations Inter-Agency Permanent Committee, dated January 31, which described the suspension of some countries’ financial support to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) as leading to “a disaster for the residents of the Gaza Strip.”
The statement, entitled “We cannot abandon the people of Gaza,” warned that “suspension of financial support for UNRWA is dangerous and will lead to the collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza, and this will have far-reaching consequences on the humanitarian and human rights levels in the occupied Palestinian territories and throughout the region.” .
As of January 30, 18 countries and the European Union had decided to suspend their funding to UNRWA.
These countries are “the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, Italy, Britain, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, New Zealand, Iceland, Romania, Estonia, in addition to the European Union,” according to the United Nations.
Following these allegations, UNRWA said that it had opened an investigation into allegations of the involvement of a number of its employees in the attacks of last October 7.
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