Gaza’s silent little graves grow even in ‘ceasefire’, 67 children lost: UN

Even under the fragile veil of a United States-brokered ceasefire, death continues to stalk Gaza’s youngest. At least 67 Palestinian children have been killed since the truce came into effect last month, UNICEF said on Friday — a toll that lays bare the grim truth that, in Gaza, even ceasefires offer no certainty of life.

UNICEF spokesperson Ricardo Pires delivered the sombre numbers in Geneva, his voice thick with disbelief. Among the dead, he said, was a baby girl killed in an Israeli air strike on her family home in Khan Younis on Thursday, and seven other children killed just a day earlier in a sweep of Israeli attacks across the Strip, the Al Jazeera reported.

“This is during an agreed ceasefire. The pattern is staggering,” Pires said. “These are not statistics. Each was a child with a family, a dream, a life — suddenly cut short.”

Since the war erupted in October 2023, Gaza’s children have stood at its brutal epicentre. More than 64,000 of them have been killed or wounded in just over a year — a level of devastation that, as reported by the Al Jazeera, has few parallels in modern memory.

Save the Children added another chilling layer this week: an average of 475 children in Gaza now suffer life-altering disabilities every month — brain injuries, severe burns, shattered limbs.

Gaza, they warn, has become home to the largest population of child amputees in modern history.

Even as the ceasefire technically holds, violence has not. The Israeli military launched new strikes across Gaza this week, claiming its troops came under fire in Khan Younis. Hamas denied the allegation, calling the strikes — which killed at least 32 Palestinians — a “dangerous escalation” intended to “resume the genocide.”

On the ground, the horror is immediate. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said its teams had treated women and children with gunshot wounds to their heads and limbs. At a mobile clinic in Gaza City, nurse Zaher described tending to a woman with a shattered leg and a nine-year-old girl shot in the face by quadcopter fire.

At al-Shifa Hospital, survivor Mohammed Malaka recounted hearing two incoming missiles before everything went black.
“When I opened my eyes, I saw my father on the ground. My three brothers were lying in blood… People were screaming, tents had turned to ash,” he told MSF.

Beyond the bombs, another slow terror is unfolding: hunger, cold, and exposure.

Israel continues to severely restrict humanitarian aid — including tents, blankets, and other winter essentials — leaving tens of thousands of displaced families sleeping under the open sky. Flooded fields have become makeshift camps. Children tremble through the night in soaked clothes, with no insulation, no heating, and only scraps of plastic to shield them from winter winds.

“There is no safe place for Gaza’s children,” UNICEF’s Pires warned. “And the world cannot continue to normalise their suffering.”

He pleaded for greater humanitarian access, calling winter in Gaza a “threat multiplier” that could claim the lives of children who have already survived bombs, hunger, and disease.

For Gaza’s families, the ceasefire has become a cruel illusion — a pause only in name, as explosions continue to puncture the sky and fear hangs heavy in every breath. The new winter season threatens to turn tragedy into catastrophe, and with every passing day of delay, more children slip through the world’s fingers.

As Pires said, Gaza’s youngest face a reality “brutally simple”:
There is nowhere safe. Not from bombs. Not from hunger. Not from the cold.