GENEVA: The UN warned Friday that all Gaza’s approximately 1 million children were facing “massive trauma” as fighting in the war-ravaged territory resumed and amid dire aid shortages.
Humanitarians described an alarming situation in Gaza amid a growing civilian death toll since Israel resumed aerial bombardment and ground operations this week after a six-week ceasefire.
Sam Rose, the senior deputy field director in Gaza for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, highlighted the psychological shock for already traumatized children to once again find themselves beneath the bombs.
This is a “massive, massive trauma for the 1 million children” living in the Palestinian territory, he told reporters in Geneva, speaking from Gaza.
The breakdown of the ceasefire that took effect on Jan. 19 comes as the population is already dramatically weakened from 15 months of brutal war sparked by Hamas’s deadly Oct, 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
“It’s worse this time,” Rose warned, “because people are already exhausted, they’re already degraded, their immune systems, their mental health, (and) population’s on the verge of famine.
“Children who had returned to school after 18 months out of school, now back in tents, ... hearing the bombardment around them constantly.
“It’s fear on top of fear, cruelty on top of cruelty, and tragedy on top of tragedy.”
James Elder, a spokesman for the UN children’s agency UNICEF, said traumatized children usually only start to process their trauma when they begin returning to normalcy.
“Psychologists would say our absolute nightmare is that they return home and then it starts again,” he told reporters.
“That’s the terrain that we’ve now entered,” he said, warning that Gaza was the only “example in modern history in terms of an entire child population needing mental health support.”
“That’s no exaggeration.”
Gaza’s civil defense agency said 504 people had been killed since Tuesday, including more than 190 under the age of 18.
The toll is among the highest since the war started more than 17 months ago with Hamas’s attack on Israel.
It has also been a deadly period for humanitarians, with seven UNRWA staff killed just since the ceasefire broke down, bringing the total number killed from that agency alone to 284 since the Gaza war began.
A Bulgarian worker with another UN agency was also killed this week, as was a local staff member of Doctors Without Borders, the medical charity said Friday.
Humanitarians warned the situation on the ground has been made worse by Israel’s decision earlier this month to cut off aid and electricity to Gaza over the deadlock in negotiations to prolong the ceasefire.
“We were able to bring in more supplies during the six weeks of the ceasefire than ... in the previous six months,” Rose said, warning though that that progress was “being reversed.”
He said there was only enough flour in Gaza for another six days.
Asked about Israel’s charge that Hamas has diverted more than sufficient aid inside Gaza, Rose said he had “not seen any evidence” of that.
“There is no aid being distributed right now, so there is nothing to steal.”
He warned, though, that if aid is not restored, “we will see a gradual slide back into what we saw in the worst days of the conflict in terms of looting ... and desperate conditions among the population.”
Meanwhile, Elder described the vital aid items that aid agencies could not bring into Gaza.
“We’ve got 180,000 doses of vaccines a few kilometers away that are life-saving and are blocked,” he said.
He also pointed to a “massive shortage” of incubators in Gaza even as pre-term births were surging.
“We have dozens of them, again sitting across the border,” he said. “Blocked ventilators for babies.”

UNITED NATIONS: Freed Israeli hostage Eli Sharabi, who was beaten, chained and starved while held for 491 days by Hamas, expressed his anger during an appearance at the UN Security Council on Thursday for having to suffer for so long and worry every day about being killed.
“Where was the United Nations? Where was the Red Cross? Where was the world?” Sharabi asked.
He challenged the UN’s most powerful body: “If you stand for humanity prove it” by bringing home the 59 hostages still in Gaza, many of whom are believed to be dead.
The fate of the remaining hostages became more uncertain after Israel on Tuesday ended a six-week break in the fighting that had allowed for the return of some hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
Sharabi said the council talked about the need to get humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza, but he saw Hamas militants eating stolen food from dozens of boxes marked with UN emblems while the hostages starved. They were given maybe a piece of pita and a sip of tea a day, and an occasional dry date, he said.
When he was released on Feb. 8, Sharabi said he weighed 44 kilos (about 97 pounds) — less than the weight of his youngest daughter, who was killed along with his wife and older daughter in Hamas’ surprise attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, along with about 1,200 others. He was among 251 people taken hostage.
The United States in November vetoed a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza because it was not linked to an immediate release of the hostages.
The Palestinians and their supporters then went to the 193-member General Assembly, which adopted a resolution in December demanding a ceasefire and reiterating its demand for the release of the hostages. Unlike Security Council resolutions, though, those passed by the General Assembly are nonbinding.
The ceasefire that went into effect in January was shattered on Tuesday with surprise airstrikes on Gaza that killed more than 400 Palestinians, one of the highest death tolls in the nearly 18-month war. Gaza’s Health Ministry said most victims were women and children.
Sharabi’s appearance before the council, the second by a freed hostage, followed an Israeli request last week for a meeting on the plight of the hostages.
Britain’s deputy ambassador James Kariuki called Sharabi’s suffering “beyond the imagination” and said “Hamas must be held accountable for their despicable actions.”
But Kariuki also said the UK condemns Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz’s “warning of the total destruction of Gaza.” Britain calls for the rapid resurgence of aid to Gaza, an investigation into allegations of sexual and gender-based violence against Palestinian detainees by Israeli forces, and an urgent return to the ceasefire deal, he said.
France’s new UN ambassador, Jérôme Bonnafont, expressed his country’s deepest condolences to Sharabi but also condemned the resumption of Israel’s bombing, saying it will not ensure the release of hostages, and demanded an end to Israel’s humanitarian blockade of Gaza.
Russia’s deputy UN ambassador Dmitry Polyansky told the council, “Our hearts were filled with sorrow as we listened to the tragic story of Mr. Eli Sharabi,” adding “such brutality can have no justification.”
Polyansky criticized Israel’s leaders for not moving to phase 2 of the ceasefire deal, which calls for the release of all hostages and a permanent end to the fighting. He said it’s difficult to discuss the future when Israel’s military and political leaders appear to have made the choice in favor of war.
Algeria’s UN Ambassador Amar Bendjama, representing the Arab world on the council, called Sharabi a “representative of civil society,” and said “no civilian, irrespective of their background, should endure suffering.”
He then accused Israel of “cherry-picking” international law. He pointed to Israel’s ban on humanitarian aid, fuel and electricity entering Gaza since March 2, its killing of civilians, and the cutoff of the International Committee of the Red Cross’ access to over 9,500 Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons since Oct. 7.
After all council members spoke, Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian UN ambassador, sent “our condolences” to Sharabi over the killing of his loved ones and his prolonged captivity. He said Palestinians “understand this pain because we live it.”
Sharabi made no mention of Israeli actions, except to say that on the morning of Oct. 7, when he heard that militants were inside Kibbutz Be’eri where he lived, he reassured his wife not to worry: “The army will come, they always come.” That morning, they never came.
He told the council he came to speak for 24-year-old Alon Ohel, a fellow hostage whom he left behind in the tunnel, and all others, including his older brother, Yossi, who was killed but whose body remains in Gaza.
“Bring them all home. Now!” Sharabi said.