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UNICEF Calls for Helping Gaza, West Bank Children ‘Before it is too Late’

Palestinian children fly kites at sunset in the Port of Gaza, Gaza City, northern Gaza Strip, 16 March 2025, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. EPA/HAITHAM IMAD
Palestinian children fly kites at sunset in the Port of Gaza, Gaza City, northern Gaza Strip, 16 March 2025, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. EPA/HAITHAM IMAD
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UNICEF Calls for Helping Gaza, West Bank Children ‘Before it is too Late’

Palestinian children fly kites at sunset in the Port of Gaza, Gaza City, northern Gaza Strip, 16 March 2025, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. EPA/HAITHAM IMAD
Palestinian children fly kites at sunset in the Port of Gaza, Gaza City, northern Gaza Strip, 16 March 2025, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. EPA/HAITHAM IMAD

UNICEF Middle East and North Africa Regional Director Edouard Beigbeder has described the situation of children in Gaza and the West Bank as “extremely concerning,” also affirming that all children living in those areas are affected in some way.

“Some children live with tremendous fear or anxiety; others face the real consequences of deprivation of humanitarian assistance and protection, displacement, destruction or death,” Beigbeder said in a statement issued Sunday after he concluded a four-day mission to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

He said nearly all of the 2.4 million children living across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, are affected in some way.

“Without aid entering the Gaza Strip, roughly 1 million children are living without the very basics they need to survive – yet again,” the UNICEF Regional Director warned.

Tragically, he added, “approximately 4,000 newborns are currently unable to access essential lifesaving care due to the major impact on medical facilities in the Gaza Strip.

Beigbeder said every day without these ventilators, lives are lost, especially among vulnerable, premature newborns in the northern Gaza Strip.

“Stalled just a few dozen kilometers outside the Gaza Strip sit more than 180,000 doses of essential childhood routine vaccines, enough to fully vaccinate and protect 60,000 children under 2 years of age, as well as 20 lifesaving ventilators for neonatal intensive care units,” the UN official explained.

He then asked for these lifesaving children’s health supplies to be allowed to enter, affirming that there is no reason why they shouldn’t be.

Before It Is Too Late

The UNICEF Regional Director said that in accordance with international humanitarian law, civilians’ essential needs must be met, and this requires facilitating the entry of life-saving assistance whether or not there is a ceasefire in place.

The ceasefire in Gaza went into effect on January 19, but was interrupted by some shelling. Israel has blocked the entry of all humanitarian aid into Gaza since March 2.

“Any further delays to the entry of aid risk further slowing or shuttering essential services and could fast-reverse the gains made for children during the ceasefire,” Beigbeder said.

“We need to deliver these supplies for children, including newborns, before it is too late. And we must keep essential services running,” he added.

Beigbeder said he visited the UNICEF-supported water desalination plant in Khan Younis in Gaza, the only facility that received electricity since November 2024 and which has now been disconnected.

“It is now running at only 13% of its capacity, depriving hundreds of thousands of people from drinkable water and sanitation services,” he said.

In the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, Beigbeder said more than 200 Palestinian and 3 Israeli children were killed since October 2023, the highest figure recorded in such timeframe in the past two decades.

“Tens of thousands of children have been killed and injured. We must not go back to a situation that pushes these numbers higher,” the UNICEF Regional Director noted.

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Arab World

West Bank Campus a Dystopian Shelter for Palestinians Uprooted Again

A man walks between empty student residences used by displaced families as shelters at the Arab American University outside Jenin, in the occupied West Bank. John WESSELS / AFP
A man walks between empty student residences used by displaced families as shelters at the Arab American University outside Jenin, in the occupied West Bank. John WESSELS / AFP
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West Bank Campus a Dystopian Shelter for Palestinians Uprooted Again

A man walks between empty student residences used by displaced families as shelters at the Arab American University outside Jenin, in the occupied West Bank. John WESSELS / AFP
A man walks between empty student residences used by displaced families as shelters at the Arab American University outside Jenin, in the occupied West Bank. John WESSELS / AFP

On deserted university grounds in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian children run outside nearly empty buildings, their playground after being driven from their homes by a major Israeli "counter-terrorism" operation.
Between a stadium and flower fields where goats now graze, the children play to escape boredom. They have no school to go to since the Israeli military ordered residents to leave the Jenin refugee camp more than two months ago, said AFP.
Mohammed Shalabi, a 53-year-old father who is among several hundred Palestinians sheltering at the university campus in Jenin city, recalled the day he heard that special Israeli forces were inside the camp.
"Everyone knows that when the army enters, it destroys the infrastructure, even the cars," said the municipal worker.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been displaced from the northern West Bank since Israel launched the offensive dubbed "Iron Wall" on January 21 in the area.
Shalabi first left Jenin camp for nearby villages before authorities offered accommodation at the now vacant premises of the Arab American University, one of the leading institutions in the West Bank.
Shalabi said he has avoided "discussing all of this" with his 80-year-old father to protect his fragile health.
"But he understands, and sometimes he cries, because he lived through the Nakba, and now this..." said Shalabi, referring to the mass displacement of Palestinians in the war that accompanied Israel's creation in 1948.
No return
Now forced to leave their homes in the Jenin refugee camp, residents fear a repeat of the collective trauma they inherited.
The United Nations agency supporting Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, provides aid but recent Israeli legislation barring coordination with Israeli military authorities has complicated its work.
The cash-strapped Palestinian Authority, which has partial administrative control in the West Bank, lacks the funds to help.
Many international organizations are already focusing much of their efforts in the Gaza Strip, a separate Palestinian territory where the Israel-Hamas war since October 2023 has created a dire humanitarian crisis.
"No one is interested in what's happening here," said a social worker who often visits the displacement shelter at the university to hand out blankets, food or grocery money.
Public services like rubbish collection are rare or virtually non-existent. Many displaced residents have asked for a temporary school to be set up for the children but to no avail.
Most shops are closed, and the nearest supermarket is a 20-minute walk away.
All the while, Israeli army bulldozers operate in the Jenin camp, leaving behind a trail of destruction.
"They told us we no longer have a home, and that we won't be returning to the camp," said displaced resident Umm Majd.
Some camp residents who attempted to go back say they were turned away.
In early March, an UNRWA official spoke of growing concerns that "the reality being created on the ground aligns with the vision of annexation of the West Bank."
'Day by day'
The new, makeshift camp has come into being on the university campus in what appears like a dystopian landscape.
The campus buildings carry names that give them an international and prestigious air, like Casa Bella and Concorde.
But many of them, not long ago busy with students, are abandoned.
Others have become home to families of the displaced who now cram into tiny studio apartments that served as campus housing.
The families cook on gas stoves and sleep on foam mattresses that have to be put away every morning to create space.
"We have 20 percent of the life we had in the camp," said Umm Majd, sharing a two-person room with three others.
Farmers bring goats to graze in fields around the campus.
Many of the students that used to fill the university halls and dorms before the Gaza war were Palestinian citizens of Israel, who generally stopped crossing into the West Bank for their studies.
Eateries in the area are either closed down or being refurbished, the sign of economic hardships across the West Bank that have worsened throughout the Gaza war.
"We live day by day. There's no outlook because of the lack of work and resources," said Ahmad Abu Jos, 30.
His baby boy Mustafa is learning to walk in the tiny apartment space, filled with the smell of detergents and cooking.
The boy's mother, Rama Abu Jos, said: "We left the camp, but not of our own free will. We hope to return home. No one likes life here."