The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) revealed that, on average, the Israeli military has been killing the equivalent of a classroom full of children every single day in Gaza since October 7, 2023.

Speaking from the war-ravaged enclave, Sam Rose, Acting Director of UNRWA Affairs in Gaza, drew attention to the staggering toll on Gaza’s children, many of whom once filled the classrooms of UNRWA-run schools. “Every single day since the start of the war in Gaza, on average, a classroom full of children has been killed,” Rose stated. In UNRWA schools, the average number of students per classroom ranges from 35 to 45—now a grim symbol of daily child slaughter under Israeli bombardment.

According to verified medical reports, over 18,000 children have been killed in less than a year of the Israeli regime’s ongoing campaign of destruction, with nearly 17,000 more wounded. Thousands of others remain buried under rubble or lost, their fate unknown. Meanwhile, hunger, thirst, and trauma haunt Gaza’s surviving children, half of the Strip’s 2.4 million residents, as Israeli forces systematically obliterate food sources, water infrastructure, and health services.

The war, now in its 9th month, has turned Gaza into a dystopian wasteland, with more than 197,000 Palestinians killed or injured, the vast majority of them women and children. Another 11,000 remain missing, presumed dead under the debris of flattened homes, mosques, and schools. Entire neighborhoods have been wiped from existence, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians—many of them multiple-time refugees—have been forced to flee again and again in search of shelter that no longer exists.

UNRWA reports that almost all of its schools have ceased to function as educational institutions and have instead become makeshift shelters for internally displaced persons. Even these so-called “safe zones” have been repeatedly and deliberately targeted by Israeli airstrikes, in violation of international law and humanitarian principles.

On July 8, UNRWA emphasized that Gaza’s children make up half the population and are enduring unimaginable suffering. “War, hunger, and homelessness are the only things many of these children know,” the agency said. “They wake to the sound of bombs and sleep to the screams of mourning.”

Israel’s continued aggression—fully backed and funded by Western powers, particularly the United States—has also unleashed a man-made famine in northern Gaza, where entire families, including infants, have perished due to starvation. Humanitarian convoys have been blocked or attacked, and critical border crossings remain sealed, deepening the collective punishment imposed on Gaza’s besieged population.

Palestinian rights advocates, humanitarian organizations, and international legal scholars are increasingly calling Israel’s campaign a textbook case of genocide, citing the scale, intent, and systematic targeting of civilians, particularly children.

“Gaza is a slaughterhouse, and the world is watching in silence,” said Basem Naim, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza. “There is no justification, no pretext that can explain away the deliberate murder of thousands of children. This is a war on innocence.”

Despite the horrifying statistics, Israel continues to enjoy impunity on the world stage, while voices from the Global South, international civil society, and Palestinian resistance groups call for accountability and urgent action.

“Gaza’s children are not collateral damage—they are the targets,” said one UN official anonymously, fearing reprisal. “History will remember this moment, and it will remember who stood by and who stood up.”

As Gaza’s skies remain choked with drones and the cries of grieving mothers echo through its rubble-strewn streets, the message from the ground is clear: Palestine bleeds, and the world must no longer look away. (ILKHA)