The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has issued a dire warning that a humanitarian catastrophe is already unfolding in Gaza City, where Israeli bombardment, siege, and deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure have left children without food, medicine, or safe shelter.

Tess Ingram, UNICEF’s Communications Manager for the Middle East and North Africa, who spent nine days inside Gaza, described the city as “a place where childhood cannot survive.” Speaking to reporters in New York, she said: “The unthinkable is not looming. It is already here.”

Hospitals Collapsing, Children Starving

The health system in Gaza is near total collapse. Out of 92 UNICEF-supported nutrition centers, only 44 remain operational, leaving thousands of malnourished children untreated. Just 11 hospitals are partially functioning, with only five neonatal units struggling to keep premature babies alive.

Forty incubators are running at nearly double capacity, serving about 80 newborns, all dependent on fragile power supplies and dwindling medicines. Ingram recalled meeting mothers who had lost children to hunger and children whose bodies were shredded by shrapnel. “Famine was everywhere I looked in Gaza City,” she said.

A Mother’s Tragedy

One story she highlighted was that of Nesma, a mother whose two-year-old daughter died from malnutrition after aid blockages cut off treatment. Her surviving child is “barely hanging on,” underscoring the unbearable reality faced by families across Gaza.

UNICEF has provided emergency food for more than 3,000 children, along with aid for infants, pregnant women, and access to drinking water. Yet the agency warns this is only a fraction of what is needed, appealing for $716 million to meet humanitarian needs this year.

“The cost of inaction will be measured in the lives of children buried in rubble, wasted by hunger and silenced before they even had a chance to speak,” Ingram stressed, urging Israel to open crossings and allow unimpeded aid, while calling on states with influence to press for an end to the war.

New Israeli Strikes on Displaced Families

Even as famine takes hold, Israeli occupation forces intensified their bombardment of Gaza City at dawn Friday, killing more civilians, including children.

According to Al Mayadeen’s correspondent, an airstrike on a residential building near al-Saraya Square killed four Palestinians, among them two children, and wounded several others.

In another strike, Israeli aircraft bombed tents sheltering displaced families near al-Shifa Hospital, killing at least three people and injuring many more.

Meanwhile, artillery shelling rained down on eastern neighborhoods of Gaza City, while Israeli quadcopter drones opened fire on civilians attempting to flee. In the north, invading forces demolished residential blocks in Beit Hanoun, leaving dozens of families homeless.

A War on Gaza’s Future

The combination of bombardment, siege, and starvation is devastating Gaza’s civilian population. Children are dying not only under the rubble of their homes but also in hospital wards without medicine and in makeshift shelters without food.

For Palestinians, this is not just a war—it is the systematic destruction of an entire generation, enabled by a blockade that has turned bread, water, and medicine into weapons of war. (ILKHA)