UNICEF says Gaza ceasefire 'vital chance' for 1 million children in need
Iran Press TV
Sunday, 26 October 2025 6:36 PM
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has described the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip as a "vital chance" to protect one million Palestinian children in need.
During the two-year Israeli genocide in Gaza from October 2023 to October 2025, the occupying regime killed at least 68,519 Palestinians, many of them children.
UNICEF Middle East and North Africa Regional Director Edouard Beigbeder said on Sunday that the Gaza ceasefire agreement is a "vital chance for the survival, safety, and dignity of children" in the Palestinian territory.
"Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip have resulted in wholesale devastation. Words and numbers alone cannot convey the scale of the impact on children that I saw - an impact that will last for generations," Beigbeder said in a statement.
"It will take time, but an inclusive future that prioritizes the rights of Gaza's one million children is possible with peace, action, and collective will," he added.
The casualties (killed and injured) from the Israeli war on Gaza include more than 64,000 children, according to UN estimates. In addition, tens of thousands of children have lost a parent since the Israeli regime launched the genocidal war in Gaza.
Beigbeder said the Palestinian children in Gaza had suffered trauma and horror on a daily basis during the war.
"One million children have endured the daily horrors of surviving in the world's most dangerous place to be a child, leaving them with wounds of fear, loss, and grief," he said.
UNICEF is now working to save children from "preventable threats, like malnutrition, disease, and the winter cold," he added.
The UN official for children's affairs emphasized the importance of giving the deprived Palestinian kids proper education.
Beigbeder said UNICEF will attempt to help give the children an educational foundation to build a new future for themselves.
"The importance of restoring education in this early recovery work cannot be overstated. After two lost years, families know that a return to proper education will provide a foundation for learning, healing, hope, and long-term social cohesion in their communities," he said, adding that "the safe, rapid and unimpeded movement" of aid is required.
He noted that an increase by the Israeli forces in the amount of UNICEF aid allowed into Gaza, which he said is still not enough to meet the needs of civilians, is also required.
Beigbeder called on the Israeli occupying forces to ease restrictions in access routes and allow free passage through all the border crossings simultaneously for the entry of humanitarian aid and needed equipment and materials, allowing relief supplies to move through all feasible supply routes, including through Egypt, Jordan, and the West Bank.
Despite the implementation of the ceasefire earlier this month, the Israeli regime continues to use humanitarian aid in Gaza as a weapon of war against Palestinians.
A senior official from the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Caroline Willemen, underscored that aid sent to the Gaza Strip should not be tied to any political restrictions.
The MSF project coordinator in Gaza said in a statement on Sunday that the near-daily shelling of Gaza by Israeli forces continues.
Willemen also cited a major Israeli assault that took place on October 19.
She, however, also acknowledged a decline in the Israeli attacks on Gaza since the ceasefire was enacted on October 10, after more than two years of nonstop slaughtering.
Willemen said that the humanitarian conditions in Gaza had not improved much since the ceasefire. She warned that as winter draws near, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians remain in tents.
"Residents of Gaza have lived under the threat of mass extermination for two years," Willemen said.
MSF teams are still registering severe malnutrition in children younger than five years and in pregnant women, she said, adding that despite a slight increase in food availability, the nutritional status of people in Gaza remains a major source of concern.
The UN official also mentioned the shortage of potable water, blankets, and bed mattresses in Gaza as another major source of concern.
"We urgently need aid to ensure people can sleep on a mattress with a blanket inside their tents. Rebuilding Gaza will take a long time, but we have not yet reached even the minimum basic humanitarian standards in the strip."
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