By Daniel Johnson, Geneva
6 August 2026
Why
it matters
- Children are still being killed
despite ceasefire - More babies born premature to
hungry mothers - Aid agencies say much greater aid
access needed - A generation of children lack
education and other basic services
Amid reports
of a new United States-led peace plan for the war-torn
enclave and a recent spike in Israeli airstrikes on alleged
Hamas targets in Gaza, UNICEF stressed that families are now
confined to approximately one third of the Strip, sheltering
among destroyed buildings, rubble and uncleared
waste.
“A ceasefire that leaves an average of one
child dead each and every day is failing children,” said
UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North
Africa, Edouard Beigbeder.
“With hundreds more
children injured, many severely, children in Gaza are still
waiting for the end to the violence they were
promised.”
Responding to the reports about the
mooted Gaza peace plan, the senior UN official welcomed
recent announcements suggesting “steps towards ending
hostilities” and scaled-up deliveries of humanitarian
relief.
“For children in Gaza, the test is simple.
Does the killing stop? Does aid reach them at scale? Do
hospitals reopen and water flow? Will children return to
school safely in September?” Mr. Beigbeder said.
“Children have heard promises before. This time,
agreements must translate into action.”
Suffering
on a huge scale
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Deadly Hamas-led attacks on Israel in
October 2023, that sparked the war in Gaza have caused an
ongoing humanitarian crisis on an epic scale.
In
common with many other UN agencies and partners, UNICEF
warned once again that across the Strip, children continue
to face acute malnutrition, disease, unsafe water and
damaged sanitation systems.
For the duration of the
hostilities, the UN has not stopped working to help the
people of Gaza.
And yet despite repeated calls to
flood the enclave with aid – and for the killing to stop
– UNICEF health workers describe how exhausted and hungry
mothers continue to arrive at health centres carrying their
severely malnourished children.
Another consequence of
this chronic lack of assistance is a worrying increase in
premature births, along with more newborns in a critical
condition.
“There’s not enough incubators and in
some cases [health workers are] saying they see two or even
three babies sharing a single machine,” explained UNICEF
spokesperson Louise Wateridge.
“In Gaza, children
only days old are already fighting to stay alive, born into
partially functioning hospitals lacking equipment and
medicine.”
Ms. Wateridge added: “This is what the
world has chosen to tolerate. The killing must stop, aid has
to enter at scale and children must be
protected.”
Burying children
“The world
calls it a ceasefire but families in Gaza are still burying
their children,” the UNICEF spokesperson
continued.
In its latest update on Gaza, the UN aid
coordination office, OCHA, noted
that airstrikes in Gaza had reportedly resulted in civilian
casualties and damage to critical medical supplies and
civilian infrastructure.
“Ongoing military
operations near the so-called ‘Yellow Line’ – coupled
with strikes reported in other parts of the Strip –are
disrupting civilian life, damaging shelters, driving
reneweddisplacement,and restricting access to
life-saving services,” the agency said, in reference to
the line of separation consisting of concrete blocks erected
by Israeli soldiers.
Citing the Gazan health
authorities, OCHA said
that the overall casualty toll since the announcement of
a ceasefire agreement on 10 October 2025 is 1,209 people
killed and 3,943 injured.
After attacks on a medical
storage facility next to Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah
last weekend, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said
that essential medical supplies had been destroyed,
including some delivered by the agency.
Assistance
continues
Amid the violence, the UN and its partners
continue to respond “wherever and whenever they can”,
OCHA said. This included work to improve 3,000 makeshift
shelters in Gaza City last week and the distribution of
emergency shelter and essential items to 9,000 households,
including kitchen sets, tarpaulins, blankets, mattresses,
solar lights and clothes.
“To scale up assistance
and carry out further upgrades of makeshift shelters, it is
critical that timber, ropes, more solar lights and tools are
allowed to enter Gaza in a timely manner,” OCHA
insisted.
On Tuesday, UNICEF delivered more than 600
pallets of recreational kits, school bags and soap into
Gaza. The supplies will be distributed ahead of the new
school year, expected to begin in about two
weeks.
Other partners working on education continue to
provide support, too. More than 250,000 pre-school and
school-aged children are participating in summer learning
activities, helping to provide a sense of routine and
stability, while helping students recover some of the
learning lost during the
hostilities.
