<\/p>\n
23 January 2025<\/p>\n
9846th Meeting (PM)<\/p>\n
Meeting a week after a ceasefire paused the war in Gaza, after it raged for almost 470 days, the Security Council discussed the plight of children, with speakers calling for their needs to be prioritized, through the rebuilding of educational infrastructure, the provision of psychosocial support and ensuring a surge of humanitarian aid to the Strip.<\/p>\n
\u201cA generation has been traumatized,\u201d Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, told the Council, pointing to the United Nations Children\u2019s Fund (Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵICEF) finding that 1 million children need mental health and psychosocial support for depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts. Nonetheless, today\u2019s briefing marks \u201cone of the rare times we are able to highlight positive developments\u201d, he said, with the ceasefire providing a reprieve from relentless hostilities for Palestinians; allowing Israeli hostages and imprisoned Palestinians to be reunited with their families; and allowing a surge in life-saving humanitarian aid into Gaza. \u201cChildren have been killed, starved and frozen to death,\u201d he said, adding: \u201cSome died before their first breath \u2014 perishing with their mothers in childbirth.\u201d Citing conservative estimates indicating that over 17,000 children are without their families in Gaza, he stated that an estimated 150,000 pregnant women and new mothers are now in desperate need of health services.<\/p>\n
Outlining the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ and its partners\u2019 stepped-up response across the Gaza Strip in recent days to meet the needs of 2 million people across Gaza, he said they were enabled by improved operating conditions, including safe, unobstructed humanitarian access, the absence of hostilities and the almost complete cessation of criminal looting. Such operations included the provision of life-saving services; delivering food parcels and flour and working to reopen bakeries; and distributing fuel to ensure that critical services, such as healthcare and water pumping, can run on back-up generators, he said, underscoring: \u201cAt the centre of this, as always, is United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵRWA).\u201d<\/p>\n
He went on to express alarm over the situation in the West Bank, where record-high levels of casualties, displacement and access restrictions witnessed since October 2023 have intensified since the announcement of the ceasefire. Voicing alarm over attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian villages and an ongoing military operation in Jenin causing death and displacement, he urged the Council to ensure the ceasefire is maintained and to ensure that international law is respected across the Occupied Palestinian Territory of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Restrictions on critical humanitarian items must be lifted, including items considered to be \u201cdual use\u201d, and there must be accountability for atrocities. Underscoring the need to ensure humanitarian operations are well-funded, with the 2025 Flash Appeal in need of $4.07 billion to meet the needs of 3 million people in Gaza and the West Bank, he stressed: \u201cThe children of Gaza are not collateral damage\u201d, but deserving of security, education and hope. \u201cThey tell us that the world was not there for them through this war. We must be there for them now.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Council also heard from Bisan Nateel, from Tamer Institute for Community Education, an organization that helps Palestinian children express themselves through artistic activities, who recounted the \u201cvery simple dreams\u201d expressed in drawings by the children she worked with, who \u201cdreamed of going back to school, of playing with friends, and of not hearing constant shelling\u201d. Instead, she said, they were told to go to the safe place in south Gaza, through a \u201cso-called safe corridor\u201d where their lives were under threat, forced to see bodies along the road, forced to walk as snipers targeted them. \u201cThey arrived unable to say a word about the horrific sights seen in their displacement journey, to a safe area that was targeted,\u201d she said. Displaying a drawing by a child named Gazi when he was in al-Mawasi refugee camp, in which he drew himself feeling well-fed, at home with his father, she said: \u201cBut Gazi lost his life, along with his father, when their tent was attacked.\u201d Also citing the case of a 12-year-old girl in north Gaza, who saw the remains of relatives \u201ctorn to pieces\u201d outside her tent, she said that amidst the horror and violence, the children of the Strip forgot \u201cwhat it means to live, to be human\u201d.<\/p>\n
Throughout the conflict, she recalled awaiting news of Security Council meetings on the radio, hoping for a ceasefire that would end the massacres. \u201cEvery day we lost our friends, loved ones, our homes and lives,\u201d she said, recalling the death of her friend Mohammed, alongside the children he was drawing and playing with at Al-Maamadani Hospital. \u201cWe used to walk down the streets, not knowing if we would live or die, always waiting for the moment the Council would announce a ceasefire, and end the violations against the Palestinian people, including their right to life, violated during 470 days of continuous attack against Gaza,\u201d she stressed. She voiced hope that Gazans\u2019 \u201cright to life\u201d will he restored, and that children can go back to school, to play, to draw and to sing; to being \u201cnormal children in a normal environment, not surrounded by soldiers, and hearing weapons\u201d. In Gaza, \u201cwe do not know how life looks like in the outside world,\u201d she said, adding: \u201cWe have lost a lot in this war and I hope we will not lose more.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine, expressing hope that the ceasefire will become permanent, called on the Council to visit the devastated Strip and witness firsthand what befell its people throughout 15 months of genocide, as well as the result of the \u201cculture of impunity and immunity enjoyed by Israel\u201d. The \u201cIsraeli killing machine\u201d killed 14,000 children, left 20,000 missing under the rubble or in mass graves, and injured and maimed many others, he said, wishing Gazans a safe return to their lives and homes, \u201cwhat remains of them\u201d; and a safe return to their loved ones, \u201cwhomever remains of them\u201d.<\/p>\n
He went on to emphasize the Palestinian Authority\u2019s readiness to shoulder their responsibilities in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, by providing relief, early recovery and emergency services, and the control of crossings. In this context, he called on Israel to release the thousands of medical workers, journalists and academics it had abducted and was subjecting to torture. Until that country ceases its crimes against children, he called on the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ to retain the Israeli Defense Forces on their list of abusers of children in armed conflict, and on countries to prohibit the sale of weapons to compel its army to respect international law.<\/p>\n
However, Israel\u2019s delegate questioned whether the Council has \u201cever paused to consider plight of Israeli children\u201d who were mutilated by Hamas on 7 October [2023], with 30 taken into the group\u2019s \u201cterror dungeons\u201d. \u201cAnd no one at the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ nor its agencies have said enough about them,\u201d he stressed. Assailing the meeting for \u201cdripping with fake outrage and a political agenda\u201d, he said Hamas, not Israel, turned Gaza into a war zone, with its use of children as human shields, and by placing terror infrastructure in schools and hospitals.<\/p>\n
Citing a recent photograph of Palestinian children in \u201cHamas headbands\u201d, he said that such \u201csystematic indoctrination\u201d robs them of their innocence and of a future. The international community must make a choice \u2014 to stand with the children of Gaza, or with those who use them as shields. He went on to assail the Council for its refusal to confront the truth about Hamas, by which it is \u201cfailing Israel, the children of Gaza and humanity\u201d. Holding up a picture of \u201clittle Kfir Bibas\u201d, who was a 9-month-old when he was kidnapped, he questioned the Council: \u201cDo you not hear the cries of Israeli children?\u201d \u201cThey deserve \u201cmore than the Council\u2019s silence and indifference, they deserve their lives back\u201d, he added.<\/p>\n
Palestinian children who \u201cshould have been sitting in classrooms, learning with books in their hands\u201d, are instead facing displacement and malnutrition, \u201creduced to skin and bones\u201d, said China\u2019s representative. \u201cAll this should not have happened, and cannot be allowed to continue,\u201d he underscored, urging that the current ceasefire must become permanent \u2014 not a pause. Similarly, the representative of Somalia \u2014 while acknowledging the recent agreement \u2014 stressed that \u201ctemporary respite, though welcome, falls devastatingly short of what Gaza\u2019s children desperately need\u201d.<\/p>\n
Stating that \u201cGaza has become the deadliest place in the world to be a child\u201d, the United Kingdom\u2019s representative also recalled that nearly half of Palestinian children surveyed in late 2024 expressed a desire to die. \u201cThat is a truly shocking statistic,\u201d he observed, adding that it is \u201cunimaginably cruel of Hamas to take children hostage\u201d. On that, the representative of the United States pointed out that Hamas still holds two children hostage, who were violently taken from their home on 7 October 2023.<\/p>\n
France\u2019s representative, too, said that his country will continue to condemn Hamas\u2019 attacks on, and abduction of, Israeli children. At the same time, Gaza has the highest number of child amputees per capita in the world, 17,000 children have been separated from their parents and more than 1 million have been displaced. \u201cThese figures are horrific,\u201d he underscored, stressing that the ceasefire must end the \u201cunacceptable\u201d suffering of Palestinian children.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile we unequivocally condemn the terrorist attacks by Hamas, we remain seriously alarmed by the extensive killing of Palestinian children in Gaza over the last 15 months,\u201d said the representative of the Republic of Korea, along those lines. \u201cThey all have names; they all deserved a better future,\u201d added Greece\u2019s representative. While acknowledging the \u201cshock on Israeli society\u201d resulting from 7 October, he underscored that, at the same time, international law \u201cmust remain the compass for our behaviour\u201d.<\/p>\n
In that context, Pakistan\u2019s representative said: \u201cThere are complaints about the seventh of October, but compare that with the devastation that has been visited on the people of Gaza.\u201d Spotlighting Israel\u2019s deliberate policy of targeting civilians, attacking hospitals and schools and using snipers against children, he asked: \u201cWhat moral degradation allows something like that to happen?\u201d He therefore called for accountability for these crimes, stressing that this is \u201cessential to restore international legitimacy\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the war in Gaza dragged on, the undertakings and assurances given to the world\u2019s children in legally binding international instruments, and under the umbrella of international law, were eroded one by one in Gaza,\u201d said the representative of Guyana. In the face of blatant disregard for international law and widespread human-rights abuses, she underscored: \u201cThose in breach must be held accountable.\u201d The representative of the Russian Federation added: \u201cIt is noteworthy that Europeans who very much like to cast themselves as defenders of human rights are not calling for those who are killing children in Gaza to be brought to justice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Sierra Leone\u2019s representative \u2014 noting that the war\u2019s effects on children \u201cwill endure long after the fighting stops\u201d \u2014 joined others in affirming the critical role of Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵRWA. The Agency provides education, health services and psychosocial support for children in Gaza, and he urged that educational infrastructure be rebuilt \u201cto ensure that children can resume learning in a safe environment that fosters both academic development and emotional healing\u201d.<\/p>\n
Similarly emphasizing that Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵRWA \u201cremains the backbone of the wider humanitarian response in Gaza\u201d, the representative of Denmark stated that the Agency must be allowed to implement its full mandate. While observing that restoring schools and the physical and mental safety children need to resume learning will be a \u201cherculean\u201d task, she stressed that this is \u201ca task we need to undertake\u201d. Investing in education is key to \u201cavoid losing a generation\u201d, added Panama\u2019s representative, calling for the provision of funding necessary for Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵRWA to continue its essential work. \u201cWe cannot allow indifference or political differences to stymie efforts to protect children,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Slovenia\u2019s book of life, we always acknowledged Palestinians \u2014 and, in fact, every human being \u2014 as more than just numbers and names,\u201d said that country\u2019s representative. Images of Gazan children \u201chave been our constant reminder not to give up on peace\u201d, she stated, underscoring that \u201ca rebuilt Gaza must stand on pillars of better opportunities\u201d. Spotlighting Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵRWA\u2019s essential role in human development, she urged: \u201cNow is the time to strengthen the Agency that offers basic services, not undermine it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Egypt\u2019s delegate, speaking on behalf of the Arab Group, also emphasized the need to preserve Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵRWA, calling the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ agency \u201ca lifeline\u201d for Gaza\u2019s children. Characterizing Gaza as \u201ca graveyard for children\u201d, subjected to \u201cunparalleled horrors\u201d in modern history, he pointed out that the crimes against them violated international law, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Geneva Convention, both endorsed by the Council. Therefore, he underscored the need for accountability, and for cooperation with international courts.<\/p>\n
Algeria\u2019s representative, Council President for January, spoke in his national capacity, echoing comments on Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵRWA\u2019s irreplaceability and calling it \u201cthe backbone of humanitarian action\u201d in the Strip. \u201cThis was a war against children, against innocents,\u201d he said, citing \u201castonishing figures\u201d, including the highest number of child amputees in modern history. Against this backdrop, he emphasized the inalienable right of all children to a dignified life, stressing: \u201cChildren in Gaza should not be an exception.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
23 January 2025 9846th Meeting (PM) Meeting a week after a ceasefire paused the war in Gaza, after it raged for almost 470 days, the Security Council discussed the plight of children, with speakers calling for their needs to be prioritized, through the rebuilding of educational infrastructure, the provision of psychosocial support and ensuring […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"country":[],"document-category":[2197,1329,4259],"document-source":[2169,1362],"committee-meeting":[],"document-subject":[1769,1829,2033,2005,6848,1741,5362,6251],"entity":[1729],"document-language":[6542],"class_list":["post-305085","document","type-document","status-publish","hentry","document-category-briefing","document-category-press-release","document-category-security-council-briefing","document-source-office-for-the-coordination-of-humanitarian-affairs-ocha","document-source-security-council","document-subject-armed-conflict","document-subject-casualties","document-subject-children","document-subject-gaza-strip","document-subject-hostages","document-subject-human-rights-and-international-humanitarian-law","document-subject-ngo-civil-society","document-subject-west-bank","entity-united-nations-system","document-language-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/305085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/document"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/305085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":305125,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/305085\/revisions\/305125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=305085"},{"taxonomy":"document-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-category?post=305085"},{"taxonomy":"document-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-source?post=305085"},{"taxonomy":"committee-meeting","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/committee-meeting?post=305085"},{"taxonomy":"document-subject","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-subject?post=305085"},{"taxonomy":"entity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entity?post=305085"},{"taxonomy":"document-language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-language?post=305085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}