No childhood left: Gaza’s little ones fighting to breathe, eat, and survive

As the war enters its third year on October 7, 2025, amid renewed rhetoric about “peace plans,” Gaza’s children remain at the center of what observers and rights organizations call a systematic campaign of genocide. This deliberate destruction extends beyond Gaza, affecting Palestinian children in the West Bank, where ongoing military raids and settler attacks have stolen their childhoods.

According to UNICEF, for two years Gaza’s children have endured staggering death tolls, deep psychological trauma, and acute malnutrition. The agency condemned the horrific toll on innocent children and once again called for an immediate end to the unprecedented violence in the besieged enclave.

“Nearly two years into this crisis, children have paid the ultimate price — one child is killed or maimed every 17 minutes,” said Ricardo Pires, UNICEF spokesperson, calling the numbers “unacceptable and horrifying.”

He added that Gaza’s children are enduring severe physical and mental wounds, many becoming orphans and living through horrors that no child should ever witness.

Pires also warned that essential neonatal equipment — such as incubators and ventilators for premature babies — is still being blocked from entering Gaza. “One in every five babies in Gaza is born prematurely,” he said. “We’re talking about infants who rely on oxygen masks to stay alive.”

Malnutrition is worsening: over 10,000 children have been diagnosed with acute malnutrition in the past two months, and about 2,400 children in Gaza City are in critical condition — their lives at risk if treatment is disrupted.

Over the past two years, thousands of children in Gaza have been killed, maimed, or displaced in what human rights experts call one of the most brutal assaults on civilians in modern history. Reports indicate that 64,000 children across the Gaza Strip have been killed or injured — including at least 1,000 infants.

No reliable data exists for the number of children who have died under rubble or from preventable diseases due to the collapse of healthcare and sanitation systems.

UN assessments suggest that around one million children live in Gaza, almost all of whom now require psychological support. Since Israel’s war began in October 2023, roughly 40,000 children have been killed or injured, and at least 17,000 have been separated from their families.

Childhood spent in hospitals

With no safe place left, Gaza’s hospitals have become the only refuge — and even they are under fire. UNICEF spokesperson James Elder, who has visited Gaza six times, described the situation:

“Every day, 60 to 80 children are admitted to Al-Helou Hospital with malnutrition or disease. The neonatal ICU is packed with patients.”

At Nasser Hospital, children burned, paralyzed, or dismembered in direct Israeli strikes on refugee tents in Khan Younis are being treated. Some of these children were later targeted again by Israeli drones.

In hospital corridors, women who have just given birth share oxygen tanks for their premature babies — each infant breathing for 20 minutes before passing the mask to another.

Children dying of hunger

According to Palestinian health authorities, 151 children have died of severe malnutrition since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza — most of them in 2025.

UNICEF’s Tess Ingram cited the tragic death of Jana Iyad, a young Gazan girl who had previously recovered from malnutrition in 2024. Her condition relapsed this September amid ongoing Israeli restrictions on aid entry, and she died shortly after. “The world failed Jana twice,” Ingram said. “She died because of deliberate decisions to block food from reaching Gaza.” Jana’s two-year-old sister, Jouri, also died of hunger soon after.

UNICEF warned that Gaza’s malnutrition crisis has reached catastrophic levels, with more than 320,000 children under five now at risk. In July alone, 13,644 children were diagnosed with acute malnutrition — a 500% increase since the beginning of the year — rising to 14,383 in August.

Continuing genocide in the West Bank

According to UNICEF, at least 41 Palestinian children — including several in East Jerusalem — have been killed by Israeli forces in 2025.

Many were shot during military raids or settler assaults. Among them:

• Leila, age 2, killed in her mother’s arms in Jenin.
• A 10-year-old shot in Tulkarm while playing on his father’s phone.
• Amer, 14, a Palestinian-American boy shot while picking almonds.
• Ayman, 12, killed outside his grandfather’s home in Hebron.
• Rimas, 13, shot while playing near her home in Jenin refugee camp.
• Mahmoud, 14, among five killed in an Israeli missile strike on Jenin.

Israeli officials claim their forces are prohibited from targeting civilians — especially minors — yet the scale of child killings has rendered those claims hollow. Families report receiving no information or accountability for the deaths of their children.

In June 2025, the United Nations once again placed Israel on its blacklist of violators of children’s rights in armed conflict, citing unprecedented levels of violence against minors in Gaza and the West Bank in 2024.

The report concluded that violence against children in these conflict zones has reached historic highs — with Israeli forces responsible for the majority of documented violations.