Gaza conflict: how children's lives are affected on every level
Bath (UK) (The Conversation): Children living in Gaza have never known anything but overcrowding, shortages, conflict and danger.
It's been 18 years since the then Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, moved all Israel's settlers and military personnel out of the Gaza Strip. The country's official narrative then became that they were no longer an occupying force.
But two years later, following the election of Hamas, the Israeli government imposed a blockade on the entire Gaza Strip. So today's 18-year-olds have suffered in a state of privation for pretty much their whole lives.
Relocation of settlers and soldiers and the imposition of the blockade did not release Israel from its responsibility under international law towards the civilian population in Gaza.
According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, Israel is still "bound by certain obligations under the law of occupation". As detailed in article 55 of the fourth Geneva convention, this includes ensuring that the population of Gaza receives food, medicines and other basic goods.
But over recent days the Israeli government has tightened the blockade so that even commodities essential for survival are denied to the civilian population. As researchers on the protection of children in Gaza, we the authors of this article are receiving messages from families that they are surviving on bread and contaminated water.
The world is learning, almost in real time, about the impact on the children of Gaza of the latest siege-like conditions imposed by Israel in the wake of Hamas' attacks. The lack of water and food is inevitably affecting the young more immediately and more severely than adults.
Those children who fall sick or are injured seek treatment in a collapsing health system, with multiple facilities attacked. Those still functioning must manage an impossible level of demand along with a drastic shortage of medicine. In such circumstances many children are vulnerable to severe harm and death.
The toll of war
But it would be a mistake to assume that even prior to the current tightening of the blockade, children in Gaza enjoyed healthy lives.
Within the densely populated Gaza Strip, the health needs of children have grown exponentially due to the conditions of the Israeli blockade.
Regular exposure to direct military attacks affects both the physical and mental health of the young. Older children will have experienced six wars including the current one in their brief lifetimes (2008-9, 2012, 2014, 2021, 2022 and 2023).
Since Israel imposed its blockade in 2007 up until the current war, Defense for Children International - Palestine (DCIP), a Palestinian human rights organisation specifically focused on child rights, has counted 1,189 Palestinian children killed in Gaza by Israeli military attacks.
These wars have also created long-term threats to children's survival and wellbeing. In the aftermath of each war, Israel has tightened access to Gaza via the main commercial crossing for construction materials, generators and water.
Without these materials, it has been impossible to clear the debris fully, and to rebuild homes, schools, hospitals and public spaces. The lack of reconstruction poses severe risks to children playing outside.
A report conducted by the UN Environment Programme following the 2008-9 war highlighted the serious health issues due to the debris that would particularly affect children. Polluted water supplies, contaminated soil, extensive rubble, including exposed metal rods, have all created grave risk for the young.
Crumbling infrastructure
Blockade has also made it impossible to develop vitally needed infrastructure. The provision of clean water and adequate sewage and waste disposal requires massive investment to meet the needs of the population.
Meanwhile, the electricity shortages and shortage of sanitation structures mean that the sea in Gaza is highly contaminated by sewage and poorly treated wastewater.
With very few safe public play spaces for children, the beach is one place that many have turned to for relief. According to a 2018 report by the RAND Corporation, however, water-related diseases are a primary cause of child and infant mortality in Gaza.
Some children require complex medical care that is not available in Gaza. Under international law, children's access to adequate medical care is the responsibility of Israel. According to human rights organisations, requests for medical permits for children to access necessary care in Israel are routinely denied.
The need for rehabilitative support for disabled children grew in 2018 and 2019 when thousands of children and youth participated in demonstrations during the "great march of return".
Israeli forces responded with live and rubber bullets, killing 46 and injuring nearly 8,800 children. Many children who sustained life-altering injuries, including loss of limbs, were not granted permits to leave Gaza to receive the rehabilitative care they required.
Palestinian doctors, nurses, other medical practitioners, social workers and civil society organisations have spent 16 years doing their utmost to provide for the health and wellbeing of Palestinian children in Gaza under blockade.
Despite multiple evacuation orders from the Israeli military in the past week, hospital staff continue to work around the clock to save lives. Yet health workers and facilities are under attack. Meanwhile DCIP is reporting that in the past week more than 1,000 Palestinian children have been killed.
It must be understood that Israel's actions in the last week - termed as "ethnic cleansing" by UN human rights officials - are an extension of 16 years of killing both children's bodies and their hopes through its blockade.
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Netanyahu recommends his Cabinet approve Hezbollah cease-fire proposal
Beirut, Nov 26: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that he would recommend his cabinet adopt a United States-brokered ceasefire agreement with Lebanon's Hezbollah, as Israeli warplanes struck across Lebanon, killing at least 23 people.
The Israeli military also issued a flurry of evacuation warnings — a sign it was aiming to inflict punishment on Hezbollah down to the final moments before any ceasefire takes hold. For the first time in the conflict, Israeli ground troops reached parts of Lebanon's Litani River, a focal point of the emerging deal.
In a televised statement, Netanyahu said he would present the ceasefire to Cabinet ministers later on Tuesday, setting the stage for an end to nearly 14 months of fighting.
Netanyahu said the vote was expected later Tuesday. It was not immediately clear when the ceasefire would go into effect, and the exact terms of the deal were not released. The deal does not affect Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza, which shows no signs of ending.
The evacuation warnings covered many areas, including parts of Beirut that previously have not been targeted. The warnings, coupled with fear that Israel was ratcheting up attacks before a ceasefire, sent residents fleeing. Traffic was gridlocked, and some cars had mattresses tied to them. Dozens of people, some wearing their pajamas, gathered in a central square, huddling under blankets or standing around fires as Israeli drones buzzed loudly overhead.
Hezbollah, meanwhile, kept up its rocket fire, triggering air raid sirens across northern Israel.
Lebanese officials have said Hezbollah also supports the deal. If approved by all sides, the deal would be a major step toward ending the Israel-Hezbollah war that has inflamed tensions across the region and raised fears of an even wider conflict between Israel and Hezbollah's patron, Iran.
The deal calls for a two-month initial halt in fighting and would require Hezbollah to end its armed presence in a broad swath of southern Lebanon, while Israeli troops would return to their side of the border. Thousands of Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers would deploy in the south, and an international panel headed by the United States would monitor all sides' compliance.
But implementation remains a major question mark. Israel has demanded the right to act should Hezbollah violate its obligations. Lebanese officials have rejected writing that into the proposal. Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz insisted on Tuesday that the military would strike Hezbollah if the U.N. peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, doesn't provide “effective enforcement” of the deal.
“If you don't act, we will act, and with great force,” Katz said, speaking with UN special envoy Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert.
The European Union's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said Tuesday that Israel's security concerns had been addressed in the deal also brokered by France.
“There is not an excuse for not implementing a ceasefire. Otherwise, Lebanon will fall apart,” Borrell told reporters in Italy on the sidelines of a Group of Seven meeting. He said France would participate on the ceasefire implementation committee at Lebanon's request.
Bombardment of Beirut's southern suburbs continues
Even as Israeli, US, Lebanese and international officials have expressed growing optimism over a ceasefire, Israel has continued its campaign in Lebanon, which it says aims to cripple Hezbollah's military capabilities.
An Israeli strike on Tuesday levelled a residential building in the central Beirut district of Basta — the second time in recent days warplanes have hit the crowded area near the city's downtown. At least seven people were killed and 37 wounded, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry.
Three people were killed in a separate strike in Beirut and three in a strike on a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon. Lebanese state media said another 10 people were killed in the eastern Baalbek province. Israel says it targets Hezbollah fighters and their infrastructure.
Earlier, Israeli jets struck at least six buildings in Beirut's southern suburbs. One strike slammed near the country's only airport, sending plumes of smoke into the sky. The airport has continued to function despite its location on the Mediterranean coast next to the densely populated suburbs where many of Hezbollah's operations are based.
Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee issued evacuation warnings for 20 buildings in the suburbs, as well as a warning for the southern town of Naqoura where UNIFIL is headquartered.
UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti told The Associated Press that peacekeepers will not evacuate.
Other strikes hit in the southern city of Tyre, where the Israeli military said it killed a local Hezbollah commander.
The Israeli military also said its ground troops clashed with Hezbollah forces and destroyed rocket launchers in the Slouqi area on the eastern end of the Litani River, a few kilometres from the Israeli border.
Previous ceasefire hopes were dashed
Under the ceasefire deal, Hezbollah would be required to move its forces north of the Litani, which in some places is about 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of the border.
A ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, the strongest Iranian-backed force in the region, would likely significantly calm regional tensions that have led to fears of a direct, all-out war between Israel and Iran. It's not clear how the ceasefire will affect the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Hezbollah had long insisted that it would not agree to a ceasefire until the war in Gaza ends, but it dropped that condition.
Hezbollah began firing into northern Israel, saying it was showing support for the Palestinians, a day after Hamas carried out its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, triggering the Gaza war. Israel returned fire on Hezbollah, and the two sides have been exchanging barrages ever since.
Israel escalated its campaign of bombardment in mid-September and later sent troops into Lebanon, vowing to put an end to Hezbollah fire so tens of thousands of evacuated Israelis could return to their homes.
More than 3,760 people have been killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon the past 13 months, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The bombardment has driven 1.2 million people from their homes. Israel says it has killed more than 2,000 Hezbollah members.
Hezbollah fire has forced some 50,000 Israelis to evacuate in the country's north, and its rockets have reached as far south in Israel as Tel Aviv. At least 75 people have been killed, more than half of them civilians. More than 50 Israeli soldiers have died in the ground offensive in Lebanon.
After previous hopes for a ceasefire were dashed, U.S. officials cautioned that negotiations were not yet complete and noted there could be last-minute hitches that delay or destroy an agreement.
“Nothing is done until everything is done,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said.
While the ceasefire proposal is expected to be approved if Netanyahu brings it to a vote in his security Cabinet, one hard-line member, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, said he would oppose it. He said on X that a deal with Lebanon would be a “big mistake” and a “missed historic opportunity to eradicate Hezbollah.”
