1. Official Palestinian statistics showed shocking figures about the reality of Palestinian children on World Children's Day. Official and human rights institutions said that since the start of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip on October 8, 2023, about 18,000 children have been killed, 167 of them in the West Bank, while at least 770 children from the West Bank have been arrested, without it being clear how many child detainees are from Gaza.

On Wednesday, the Freedom Human Rights Organizations Coalition issued a detailed fact sheet on the occasion of World Children's Day, entitled "Children of Gaza at the forefront of the victims of aggression." It stated that the violations to which children in the Gaza Strip were subjected were numerous and varied, including murder, assault on personal safety by beating and sometimes by humiliation and degrading treatment, as well as arrest, denial of treatment, forced displacement, starvation, and deprivation of basic rights, including their right to education, adequate housing, health, and other rights guaranteed to them by the rules of international law and international agreements related to children.

"Hurriya" explained that the occupation forces have killed 17,390 children under the age of 18 since the beginning of the aggression on the Gaza Strip, and 22,110 other children have been injured and need to travel to receive treatment due to the lack of the necessary medicines for them.

The Freedom paper stated that 1,250 cases of lower limb amputations among Gazan children have been recorded since the beginning of the aggression as a result of being injured by shrapnel from Israeli projectiles and missiles. In addition, 55 children have died as a result of malnutrition and dehydration, due to the starvation policy pursued by the occupation forces in their aggression against civilians. 217 premature babies have also died as a result of power outages in incubators and the severe shortage of medicines and health supplies.

The occupation forces also arrested dozens of children during their incursions into cities and camps in the governorates of the Gaza Strip or during their passage through the military checkpoints set up by the occupation forces. They were subjected to the most horrific forms of torture, humiliation and degrading treatment inside Israeli prisons.

"Hurriya" said that 3,500 children have no information about their fate until now, and 35,000 cases of children living without one or both of their parents, while the occupation forces forced tens of thousands of Gazan children to forcibly migrate.

In dozens of cases, Hurriya has documented the displacement of children without their families after losing them as a result of military attacks carried out by the occupation forces without regard for the rules and provisions of humanitarian law.

For its part, the Ministry of Education and Higher Education confirmed that more than 11,000 students were killed in the Gaza Strip, and 81 in the West Bank, while 19,467 were injured in Palestine since the beginning of the aggression, and that 171 government schools in Gaza were severely damaged, more than 77 were completely destroyed, and 126 government schools, in addition to 65 UNRWA schools, were bombed and vandalized, while 91 schools in the West Bank were vandalized.

The ministry indicated that about 700,000 students are deprived of going to their schools due to the ongoing aggression on the Strip.

UNICEF said that the war in the Gaza Strip has had disastrous effects on children and families, as children are dying at an alarming rate.

An estimated 1.9 million people – about 9 out of 10 Gazans – have been internally displaced, more than half of them children, and are without adequate water, food, fuel and medicine. More than 600,000 children are trapped in Rafah alone, with nowhere safe to go, after their homes were bombed and their families were torn apart.

Many children have been displaced multiple times, losing their homes, parents and loved ones. UNICEF has warned that the spread of polio virus is adding to the list of threats, especially for thousands of unvaccinated children, after the Gaza Strip had been free of polio for 25 years, and its re-emergence poses another threat to children in the Gaza Strip and neighboring countries.

According to UNICEF, at least 4,000 babies are estimated to have been cut off from life-saving neonatal care in the past year because of the constant shelling of hospitals trying to keep them alive, and because of the lack of electricity supplies, as the little fuel delivered to power hospitals is woefully inadequate. This has been particularly deadly in the northern parts of the Gaza Strip.

The occupation also destroyed three neonatal intensive care units in northern Gaza, and the number of available incubators decreased by 70 percent to about 54 incubators, throughout the Strip.

She pointed out that at least 6,000 newborns need intensive care in the Gaza Strip every year. However, the real number may be higher, and the number of neonatal intensive care units in the Gaza Strip was estimated at 8 units, with a total of 178 incubators.

The Prisoners Club also released data on child arrests, saying that Israel had arrested 770 children in the West Bank. The club said that there were 100 children under administrative detention, including a 14-year-old child, in a first, based on available data.

According to the club, the occupation has deprived all families of detained children from visiting them since the beginning of the war. In addition to the crime of torture, starvation and medical crimes, detained children face the nightmare of the spread of scabies, specifically in the children's section of Megiddo Prison.

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stressed the necessity of not excluding Palestinian children from international protection, noting that they suffer from catastrophic humanitarian conditions that violate their most basic rights, most importantly the right to life.

For its part, the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on the international community to take urgent action to ensure that the occupying state respects all international covenants and treaties, most notably the Convention on the Rights of the Child.