Israel is killing on average a classroom’s worth of Palestinian children a day since it began its military onslaught on the Gaza Strip 21 months ago, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA said in an alarming tweet on Monday.
It said the average number of children killed per day ranges between 35 and 45, the equivalent of a classroom run by UNRWA.
“Every day since the beginning of the war in Gaza, an average of an entire school class of children has been killed,” UNRWA Director of Affairs in Gaza Sam Rose said.
Rose also spoke of Palestinian children’s plight as they queue to fetch water and food every day for their families, exposing them to the possibility of being killed by the Israeli army.
“You see children queuing up by the side of the road with yellow jerrycans, every single morning, waiting for the daily water truck to come and get their five to 10 litres of water. Lines of children waiting every day, [this] appears to have been one of those sites that was hit yesterday,” he said in reference to the Sunday attack on a water collection point in central Gaza, where Israeli forces opened fire on a gathering of people, killing at least seven children.
“Every death is a tragedy; this one particularly is emblematic given the circumstances in which it took place. These weren’t the only children killed in Gaza yesterday and they won’t be the only children killed in Gaza today,” he said.
At least 18,000 Palestinian children have been killed so far in Gaza by Israeli fire since 7 October 2023. The Israeli army has killed at least 58,600 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry, with death tolls mounting in recent weeks to almost 100 – if not more – every day.
The true number of deaths is believed to be much higher, with thousands of uncounted victims buried under the rubble of destroyed buildings.
One in ten children malnourished
Palestinian children’s suffering does not end with the ever-present possibility of being killed by the Israeli army.
One in 10 children screened by UNRWA’s clinics and facilities in the war-battered enclave is now malnourished, the agency’s communications director, Juliette Touma, said on Tuesday.
Touma said acute malnutrition cases in children were rare before the war. One nurse told the agency that he had only seen “these cases in textbooks and documentaries,” but he is treating them “face to face” today.
“Now Gaza’s shattered health system is overwhelmed – and is being blocked by the Government of Israel. The world cannot continue to look away,” UNRWA warned.
As of June 2025, at least 66 children have died of malnutrition as a result of Israel’s siege, imposed amid the ongoing war.
Gaza’s government office attributed Israel’s ban on baby formula and nutrient deliveries, as well as its closure of border crossings, to rising cases of such deaths.
Also on Tuesday, the UN’s human rights office for the Palestinian territories published another harrowing statistic on Palestinian children’s suffering in Gaza.
The organisation said at least 10 children per day lose one or both their legs due to Israel’s attacks, while 40,500 children have new war-related injuries.
Amputations in the Gaza Strip are also often carried out with anaesthesia, due to the collapsing healthcare system, and can carry grave consequences for the enclave’s children.
The war-torn territory, where just over two million people live, is now home to the largest number of child amputees in the world, according to UNICEF.
Source: The New Arab
