2024-02-08 19:23:18
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This content was published on February 08, 2024 – 20:23 July, February 8, 2024 – 20:23
By Gabriel Tetreau-Farber
GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child appealed on Thursday for “massive psychosocial support” for children traumatized by violence in the Gaza Strip, the occupied West Bank and Israel, and said it would review Israel’s treatment of children later this year.
Israel launched its military attack on Gaza following the attack by the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) on October 7 on southern Israel. This attack led to the displacement of most of the Strip’s 2.3 million residents, turning homes and infrastructure into rubble, and also caused a shortage. Acute in food, water and medicine.
Health authorities in Gaza say that children and women represent the largest proportion of the nearly 28,000 people killed during the Israeli attack. Israel says Hamas killed about 1,200 people and took 253 hostage on October 7.
“The rights of children living under the effective control of the State of Israel are being grossly violated at a level rarely seen in modern history,” said Anne Skelton, chair of the Committee on the Rights of the Child.
She added in a press conference, “We call for the provision of massive psychological and social support to children and families to mitigate the traumatic impact of war in the long term, including Israeli children who were victims or witnesses of the (October 7) attacks, as well as those whose family members were held hostage.”
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported last week that almost all children in Gaza are believed to be in need of psychological support.
Skelton said the committee “deeply regrets” that Israel postponed its participation in a planned dialogue on children’s problems, which is now scheduled to take place in September.
The Israeli diplomatic mission in Geneva said that officials are now focusing on war efforts against Hamas, which has made them “unable to devote the necessary resources to prepare and appear before the committee in January.”
Israel’s permanent mission in Geneva said in a statement, “It is unfortunate, but sad but not surprising, that the Committee on the Rights of the Child does not indicate its understanding of Israel’s request to postpone its review before the committee due to the state of war.”
Skelton also expressed concern for children living in the occupied West Bank, who she said “face arbitrary arrests, extrajudicial killings, and violence by occupying forces and settlers.”
The Israeli army says it is carrying out operations against suspected militants in the West Bank.
The West Bank had already witnessed the highest levels of violence in decades during the months leading up to the October 7 attack on Israel, but confrontations increased sharply in the wake of the Israeli ground invasion of Gaza.
(Prepared by Muhammad Aysem for the Arabic Bulletin – Edited by Muhammad Muhammadin and Mahmoud Reda Murad)
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