An international organization has stated that international laws and agreements related to child protection have become ink on paper in light of the ongoing Israeli crimes and violations against Palestinian children, especially in the Gaza Strip.
Ayed Abu Qutaish, Director of the Accountability Program at Defense for Children International, stated that “Palestinian Children’s Day this year comes amidst unprecedented crimes and violations against Palestinian children since October 7, 2023.”
He added that these violations “touched upon all children’s rights recognized in international agreements, most notably the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was supposed to provide care and protection for children in conflict zones or under military occupation.”
Abu Qutaish stated that “no right for children in Gaza has been left that has not been fundamentally uprooted, whether the right to life, education, health, or other rights.”
He considered that “international laws and agreements related to child protection have become ink on paper in light of the ongoing Israeli crimes” against Palestinian children, especially in the Gaza Strip.
He continued, “The occupation’s crimes are being committed in full view of the world, without the slightest intervention to protect it, which has turned international laws into mere ink on paper in the face of the Israeli criminal machine.” Human rights activist Abu Qutaish pointed out that “these crimes highlight the extent of international silence and complicity with the occupation.”
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He explained that “the occupation has killed approximately 200 children in the West Bank since the beginning of the aggression on October 7, 2023, in addition to the crimes committed against children detained in Israeli prisons.”
Since Israel began its war of extermination on Gaza on October 7, 2023, children in the Gaza Strip have faced catastrophic conditions. Palestinian government reports indicate that children and women constitute more than 60 percent of the total victims of the ongoing genocide, amounting to more than 18,000 children.
Children under the age of 18 constitute 43 percent of the total population of the State of Palestine, which reached approximately 5.5 million by the end of 2024, with 3.4 million in the West Bank and 2.1 million in the Gaza Strip, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
On March 18, Israel reneged on the ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement in effect since January 19, and resumed its genocidal war on the Gaza Strip. With unconditional American support, Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza since October 7, 2023, leaving more than 165,000 Palestinians dead and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 11,000 missing.
