NEW YORK : The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Executive Director Catherine Russell has said more than 17,000 kids have reportedly been killed and 33,000 wounded in the ongoing war in Gaza.Addressing the UN Security Council on Wednesday she said an average of 28 kids die daily in Gaza – “a whole classroom of children killed every day for nearly two years”.She started her address by thanking Pakistan, as president of the Security Council, and member states “for inviting UNICEF to share our firsthand perspective on this desperate situation for Gaza’s 1 million children.”
She said “From the beginning of the present conflict, children – Palestinian and Israeli – have suffered terribly. Children have been killed, traumatized, and taken hostage. Children have been orphaned and injured. Children are hungry and lack clean water. Children are out of school, and the safety of their homes is a distant memory.
“Children are not political actors. They do not start conflicts, and they are powerless to stop them. But they suffer greatly, and they wonder why the world has failed them. And make no mistake, we have failed them.”Over the past 21 months of war, more than 17,000 children have reportedly been killed and 33,000 injured in Gaza. An average of 28 children have been killed each day – the equivalent of an entire classroom. Consider that for a moment. A whole classroom of children killed, every day for nearly two years.