DaysofPal- A senior United Nations humanitarian official has warned that children in Gaza are being killed at an average rate of one every hour, condemning the international community’s failure to stop the Israeli genocide against civilians in Gaza.
Tom Fletcher, Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, expressed deep frustration and sorrow over what he described as the “horrors” unfolding in the besieged Palestinian enclave.
Speaking at a meeting on the situation of children in Gaza, organized by Belgium and Jordan on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, Fletcher said: “We gather again to share our testimonies and to express our shame.”
He warned that despite countless appeals, little has been done to halt the violence.
“Let us try to find words that reflect the scale of the horror, to reaffirm the need for action. Yet I fear we are accepting that nothing will be done,” he said.
According to Fletcher, Gaza has witnessed the killing of a child nearly every hour for almost two years by the Israeli army, while those who survive often live in tents. He added that schools have turned into “places of terror,” depriving more than 700,000 children of their right to education.
“We are constantly told this is the price civilians must pay, one way or another, for war,” he said, stressing that lawyers and historians will debate for years how to name what is happening. But despite restrictions on foreign media access, he argued, “there will be an overwhelming body of evidence for justice.”
Until then, he said, words will not reach “the children under the rubble, those searching through debris for food, or those undergoing amputations without anesthesia.”
Fletcher concluded with a stark warning: “I fear we will gather again only to count the dead, to try to find new words for horror, and to call once more for action. But how many more will be killed, and how much further will we damage our shared humanity?”
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 12,823 people have been killed and 54,944 injured since March 18, 2025, bringing the overall death toll since October 7, 2023, to at least 65,419, with more than 167,160 injured as the Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people continues.
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