In a report following a visit to the Palestinian territory, UNICEF’s communications officer for the Middle East and North Africa, Tess Ingram, noted that people there are living amid fear, escapes, and funerals. She also expressed that children are in grave danger.

Nearly one million people remain in Gaza City, where the collapse of essential services is leaving children and the most vulnerable struggling to survive, while famine spreads and humanitarian aid is practically nonexistent, she warned.

Only 44 of the 92 outpatient nutritional treatment centers supported by UNICEF are still operating, meaning thousands of malnourished children lack access to this lifesaving support. Meanwhile, hospitals are at capacity. Only 11 remain partially operational, and only five have neonatal intensive care units, she added.

She also reported that 80 babies are fighting for their lives “on overloaded machines, totally dependent on generators and medical supplies that could run out at any moment.”

Ingram recounted how in Gaza she encountered displaced families fleeing again, children separated from their parents, and mothers whose children died of starvation.

The price of inaction will be measured in the lives of children buried in the rubble, victims of malnutrition and deprived of a voice before even having a chance to speak, she said.

jdt/arm/mem/ga