GAZA: As the death toll in Gaza has surpassed 37,718, mostly women and children, amid Israel’s bombardment of the besieged Palestinian enclave, a report finds that more than 20,000 Palestinian children are missing in Gaza.
According to a new report by Save the Children at least 21,000 children are missing due to the chaos of the war. The charity says 17,000 children missing are those unaccompanied or separated from their families and the 4,000 children who are thought to be missing under the rubble.
It said the number of children of those who have either been detained by Israeli forces or have been recently discovered in mass graves is not known.
According to the Gaza health ministry, Israel’s relentless bombardment in the besieged territory has killed at least 37,658 Palestinians, mostly women, children and infants. It says the war has also injured 86,237, with 10,000+ believed to be buried under the debris of bombed houses and 9,500 abducted by Tel Aviv.
The report by Save the Children notes that it is almost impossible to collect and verify information under the current conditions in Gaza due to the lack of access to aid agencies and forensic experts.
Tanya Haj-Hassan, a paediatric who volunteered in Gaza’s Al-Aqsa hospital in March with Doctors Without Borders said these estimates are on the low end.
Haj-Hassan says during her stay in Gaza it was common after an airstrike for family members to come to the hospital looking for their loved ones.
“It’s assumed that those kids died buried under the rubble, and I don’t think those deaths are fully accounted for in these numbers,” she said.
She said one time a father, covered in soot and barefoot, came to the hospital looking for his daughter and collapsed when he realized that she wasn’t there.
In another incident, a mother came to the hospital in a wheelchair, telling the staff that her seven-day-old child was trapped under the rubble.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, there are more than 15,000 have lost parents during the conflict.
Jeremy Stoner, the Middle East regional director at Save the Children said conditions are very bad for parents in Gaza. “Families are tortured by the uncertainty of the whereabouts of their loved ones,” she said.
