‘A Generation Has Been Traumatized’, Says Humanitarian Affairs Chief, Briefing Security Council on Plight of Children in Gaza
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.
“A generation has been traumatized,” Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, told the Council, pointing to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) finding that 1 million children need mental health and psychosocial support for depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts. Nonetheless, today’s briefing marks “one of the rare times we are able to highlight positive developments”, 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. “Children have been killed, starved and frozen to death,” he said, adding: “Some died before their first breath — perishing with their mothers in childbirth.” 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.
Outlining the UN and its partners’ 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: “At the centre of this, as always, is United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).”
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 “dual use”, 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: “The children of Gaza are not collateral damage”, but deserving of security, education and hope. “They tell us that the world was not there for them through this war. We must be there for them now.”
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 “very simple dreams” expressed in drawings by the children she worked with, who “dreamed of going back to school, of playing with friends, and of not hearing constant shelling”. Instead, she said, they were told to go to the safe place in south Gaza, through a “so-called safe corridor” where their lives were under threat, forced to see bodies along the road, forced to walk as snipers targeted them. “They arrived unable to say a word about the horrific sights seen in their displacement journey, to a safe area that was targeted,” 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: “But Gazi lost his life, along with his father, when their tent was attacked.” Also citing the case of a 12-year-old girl in north Gaza, who saw the remains of relatives “torn to pieces” outside her tent, she said that amidst the horror and violence, the children of the Strip forgot “what it means to live, to be human”.
Throughout the conflict, she recalled awaiting news of Security Council meetings on the radio, hoping for a ceasefire that would end the massacres. “Every day we lost our friends, loved ones, our homes and lives,” she said, recalling the death of her friend Mohammed, alongside the children he was drawing and playing with at Al-Maamadani Hospital. “We 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,” she stressed. She voiced hope that Gazans’ “right to life” will he restored, and that children can go back to school, to play, to draw and to sing; to being “normal children in a normal environment, not surrounded by soldiers, and hearing weapons”. In Gaza, “we do not know how life looks like in the outside world,” she said, adding: “We have lost a lot in this war and I hope we will not lose more.”
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 “culture of impunity and immunity enjoyed by Israel”. The “Israeli killing machine” 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, “what remains of them”; and a safe return to their loved ones, “whomever remains of them”.
He went on to emphasize the Palestinian Authority’s 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 UN 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.
However, Israel’s delegate questioned whether the Council has “ever paused to consider plight of Israeli children” who were mutilated by Hamas on 7 October [2023], with 30 taken into the group’s “terror dungeons”. “And no one at the UN nor its agencies have said enough about them,” he stressed. Assailing the meeting for “dripping with fake outrage and a political agenda”, 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.
Citing a recent photograph of Palestinian children in “Hamas headbands”, he said that such “systematic indoctrination” robs them of their innocence and of a future. The international community must make a choice — 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 “failing Israel, the children of Gaza and humanity”. Holding up a picture of “little Kfir Bibas”, who was a 9-month-old when he was kidnapped, he questioned the Council: “Do you not hear the cries of Israeli children?” “They deserve “more than the Council’s silence and indifference, they deserve their lives back”, he added.
Palestinian children who “should have been sitting in classrooms, learning with books in their hands”, are instead facing displacement and malnutrition, “reduced to skin and bones”, said China’s representative. “All this should not have happened, and cannot be allowed to continue,” he underscored, urging that the current ceasefire must become permanent — not a pause. Similarly, the representative of Somalia — while acknowledging the recent agreement — stressed that “temporary respite, though welcome, falls devastatingly short of what Gaza’s children desperately need”.
Stating that “Gaza has become the deadliest place in the world to be a child”, the United Kingdom’s representative also recalled that nearly half of Palestinian children surveyed in late 2024 expressed a desire to die. “That is a truly shocking statistic,” he observed, adding that it is “unimaginably cruel of Hamas to take children hostage”. 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.
France’s representative, too, said that his country will continue to condemn Hamas’ 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. “These figures are horrific,” he underscored, stressing that the ceasefire must end the “unacceptable” suffering of Palestinian children.
“While 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,” said the representative of the Republic of Korea, along those lines. “They all have names; they all deserved a better future,” added Greece’s representative. While acknowledging the “shock on Israeli society” resulting from 7 October, he underscored that, at the same time, international law “must remain the compass for our behaviour”.
In that context, Pakistan’s representative said: “There are complaints about the seventh of October, but compare that with the devastation that has been visited on the people of Gaza.” Spotlighting Israel’s deliberate policy of targeting civilians, attacking hospitals and schools and using snipers against children, he asked: “What moral degradation allows something like that to happen?” He therefore called for accountability for these crimes, stressing that this is “essential to restore international legitimacy”.
“As the war in Gaza dragged on, the undertakings and assurances given to the world’s children in legally binding international instruments, and under the umbrella of international law, were eroded one by one in Gaza,” said the representative of Guyana. In the face of blatant disregard for international law and widespread human-rights abuses, she underscored: “Those in breach must be held accountable.” The representative of the Russian Federation added: “It 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.”
Meanwhile, Sierra Leone’s representative — noting that the war’s effects on children “will endure long after the fighting stops” — joined others in affirming the critical role of UNRWA. The Agency provides education, health services and psychosocial support for children in Gaza, and he urged that educational infrastructure be rebuilt “to ensure that children can resume learning in a safe environment that fosters both academic development and emotional healing”.
Similarly emphasizing that UNRWA “remains the backbone of the wider humanitarian response in Gaza”, 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 “herculean” task, she stressed that this is “a task we need to undertake”. Investing in education is key to “avoid losing a generation”, added Panama’s representative, calling for the provision of funding necessary for UNRWA to continue its essential work. “We cannot allow indifference or political differences to stymie efforts to protect children,” he stated.
“In Slovenia’s book of life, we always acknowledged Palestinians — and, in fact, every human being — as more than just numbers and names,” said that country’s representative. Images of Gazan children “have been our constant reminder not to give up on peace”, she stated, underscoring that “a rebuilt Gaza must stand on pillars of better opportunities”. Spotlighting UNRWA’s essential role in human development, she urged: “Now is the time to strengthen the Agency that offers basic services, not undermine it.”
Egypt’s delegate, speaking on behalf of the Arab Group, also emphasized the need to preserve UNRWA, calling the UN agency “a lifeline” for Gaza’s children. Characterizing Gaza as “a graveyard for children”, subjected to “unparalleled horrors” 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.
Algeria’s representative, Council President for January, spoke in his national capacity, echoing comments on UNRWA’s irreplaceability and calling it “the backbone of humanitarian action” in the Strip. “This was a war against children, against innocents,” he said, citing “astonishing figures”, 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: “Children in Gaza should not be an exception.”