UNICEF spokesperson Ricardo Pires described the toll as “staggering.”
AN average of 11 children have been killed or injured every 24 hours in Lebanon over the last week, as Israel intensifies its campaign to occupy southern Lebanon despite the supposed ceasefire signed in April.
Israel has consistently declared entire towns and villages to be “combat zones” before launching intense airstrikes that topple residential buildings onto their residents. Furthermore, it has killed rescuers and paramedics in ghastly double-tap strikes to ensure that no one is rescued and survives its intense bombings.
According to UNICEF, a total of 77 children have been killed or injured over the last seven days. Since the ceasefire began in April, 55 children have been killed and 212 injured, according to the agency.
UNICEF spokesperson Ricardo Pires described the toll as “staggering.”
The slaughtering of children in the wars of choice it wages is an Israeli leitmotif. Notably, the Israeli-American war on Iran began with an airstrike on an elementary school in Minab in the Hormozgan province of Iran. The ghastly attack killed around 170 civilians — children constituted the majority of the fatalities. An Al Jazeera investigation concluded that the targeting of the Shajereh Tayyebeh school was “deliberate.”
According to Iran’s Ministry of Health, the 40-day Israeli-American assault on Iran killed at least 376 children, including seven infants. The youngest victim of the barbaric aggression was just eight months old. A further 1,621 children were injured. That amounts to an average of nearly 50 dead or wounded children a day in Iran during the active war.
However, Israeli barbarism against children — which has been carried out with the unflinching support of the United States and its Western and Arab vassals — has been most visible in the Gaza Strip. Since the start of their genocidal campaign in Gaza in October 2023, the Israelis have slaughtered 20,000 Palestinian children and orphaned 51,000 more.
In the earliest days of their barbaric assault on the Gaza concentration camp, the Israelis effectively created an entire category of children unique to Gaza. “You know there is an acronym in the Gaza Strip right now… there is an acronym that is unique to the Gaza Strip and it’s called WCNSF — Wounded Child No Surviving Family,” Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan of Doctors Without Borders explained in November 2023. “And it is used not infrequently in the last three weeks.”
This March, Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah, a Palestinian-British doctor who has worked extensively in Gaza, including during the early days of the ongoing genocide, told NBC that he was treating Lebanese children with “blast injuries, shrapnel, rubble, really devastating injuries.” He added that one boy “was a throwback to my time in Gaza, who was the sole survivor of his family.”
Similar to Gaza, the Israelis have wiped out entire Lebanese bloodlines since the start of their campaign in Lebanon in October 2023.
In their bid to occupy Lebanese territory south of the Litani River, the Israelis have intensified their bombing campaign, with civilians — especially children, rescuers, and paramedics — bearing the brunt of Israeli terrorism.
Given that the world has let the Israelis get away with a livestreamed genocide that has incinerated over 20,000 Palestinian children in just over 30 months (an average of 20 dead children or 73 dead or wounded children a day), it is clear that the genocidal Jewish state fears no repercussions for carrying out another infanticide in Lebanon. — Palestine Will Be Free
