"Excellencies, good afternoon. Thank you to Pakistan, as president of the Council, and to Member States for bringing us together this afternoon. Thank you for inviting UNICEF to share our firsthand perspective on this desperate situation for Gaza's 1 million children.
"From the beginning of the present conflict, children - Palestinian and Israeli - have suffered terribly. Children have been killed, traumatized, and taken hostage. Children have been orphaned and injured. Children are hungry and lack clean water. Children are out of school, and the safety of their homes is a distant memory.
"Children are not political actors. They do not start conflicts, and they are powerless to stop them. But they suffer greatly, and they wonder why the world has failed them. And make no mistake, we have failed them.
"Over the past 21 months of war, more than 17,000 children have reportedly been killed and 33,000 injured in Gaza. An average of 28 children have been killed each day - the equivalent of an entire classroom. Consider that for a moment. A whole classroom of children killed, every day for nearly two years.
"These children are not combatants. They are being killed and maimed as they line up for lifesaving food and medicine.
"Last week, 15 Palestinians, including nine children and four women, were killed by a strike while waiting in line for UNICEF nutritional supplies in Deir al Balah.
"Among the survivors was Donia, a mother seeking a lifeline for her family after months of desperation and hunger. Donia's 1-year-old son, Mohammed, was killed in the attack after speaking his first words just hours earlier. When we spoke with Donia, she was lying critically injured in a hospital bed, clutching Mohammed's tiny shoe.
"This past weekend, 10 people, including seven children, were killed in an attack while collecting drinking water. And just today, at least 20 people, some of whom were children, were reportedly killed in a chaotic surge of people at a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution site in southern Gaza.
"Between May 27th and July 7th, the UN Human Rights Office recorded the killings of 798 Palestinian civilians - including children - desperate to find food, at or near distribution sites and humanitarian convoys.
"At the same time, the situation in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has significantly deteriorated. Since the start of the year, 33 Palestinian children have been killed in militarized operations and settler attacks. More than 32,000 people have been forcibly displaced, while the demolition of homes and roads, and the use of explosive weapons in populated areas continue.
"In addition, the number of Palestinian children from the West Bank in detention for alleged security-related offences has reached its highest level in seven years. This includes 120 children detained without charge or trial, under administrative detention orders.
"Excellencies, children who survive the war in Gaza will be forever affected by the deprivation and exposure to traumatic events they have experienced. Even before the war began, half of Gaza's child population needed mental health and psychological support. Today, all of Gaza's children need these services.
"Children in Gaza are enduring catastrophic living conditions, including severe food insecurity and malnutrition.
"Of the more than 113,000 children screened for malnutrition in June, nearly 6,000 were found to be acutely malnourished. This represents a staggering 180 per cent increase in acute malnutrition cases compared to February.
"These severely malnourished children need consistent, supervised treatment, along with safe water and medical care to survive.
"Water production capacity has plummeted, and as a result, 95 per cent of households in Gaza do not have access to adequate water. Water pumping, desalination, and wastewater treatment are all operating at significantly reduced capacity because of the lack of fuel. And sanitation services are nearing collapse.
"With clean water increasingly difficult to access, children have little choice but to drink contaminated water. This is increasing the risk of disease outbreaks, with water borne diseases now making up 44 per cent of all healthcare consultations.
"We continue to see more cases of diarrheal and respiratory infections in children under five. And in recent days, our UNICEF team in Gaza have been responding to a meningitis outbreak with dozens of infants now gravely ill.
"Thousands of children urgently need emergency medical support. Children with traumatic injuries and severe pre-existing medical conditions are at risk of death because the medical care they need is unavailable in the Gaza Strip.
"Hospitals that are still able to operate are overwhelmed, with emergency departments operating at full capacity and occupancy exceeding 100 per cent. These facilities are facing severe shortages of essential medicine and fuel, disrupting critical care and leaving some operating rooms in the dark. Access to critical newborn care has been reduced by nearly 70 per cent.
"At least 12,500 patients with severe injuries, chronic diseases, and complex medical conditions need urgent medical evacuation, including thousands of children. But only a small number of countries are taking in patients from Gaza, resulting in even more preventable deaths.
"Here, I would like to commend those countries, including those in the region, that are accepting patients from Gaza.
"Until Gaza's health care system has sufficient capacity, UNICEF is calling for increased support for medical evacuations, with the guarantee that all evacuated patients and their caregivers can return to Gaza following treatment and recovery.
"Excellencies, after almost 11 weeks of a complete aid blockade, authorities have permitted a trickle of UN supplies to enter the Gaza Strip beginning in mid-May. It is nowhere near enough. Between May 19th and July 2nd, authorities allowed an average of 30 UN trucks per day to offload aid at designated crossings. This included UNICEF nutrition products, water treatment supplies, and vaccines.
"But 30 trucks a day are a fraction of what is needed for two million people to survive.
"We continue to call on the authorities to permit the entry and delivery of humanitarian aid in Gaza at sufficient speed and scale to meet the urgent needs of children and families.
"This includes fuel. With electricity cut off since the start of the war, all operations inside the Gaza Strip - hospital generators, ambulances, bakeries, water and sanitation facilities, and the communication network -depend on fuel. A crippling fuel shortage is now forcing essential services to shut down, putting the lives of over a million children at risk. Fuel must be consistently allowed into Gaza, in sufficient quantities to sustain life-saving operations.
"Excellencies, for the last several months, the UN-led humanitarian response has been sidelined - despite the fact that during the March ceasefire, we were delivering assistance in an efficient and safe manner.
"This included essential vaccines and neonatal care, lifesaving nutrition services, and access to clean water, provided through more than 400 distribution points across Gaza.
"UNICEF and our partners went even further - delivering aid door-to-door, reaching malnourished children and pregnant mothers directly in their places of refuge.
"We implore you, again, to ensure that UNICEF and our humanitarian partners are allowed to do our jobs. We have proven that essentials like medicine, vaccines, water, food, and nutrition for babies can reach those in need, wherever they are, when we have appropriate access. We urgently need a return to the functioning U.N.-led aid pipeline with safe and sustained humanitarian access through all available crossings.
"In addition, UNICEF reiterates the Secretary-General's appeal to ensure that all aid delivery is demilitarized and grounded in the principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality, and independence. Civilian safety must be paramount. I urge this Council to use its full weight to press parties to accept these principles and rules.
"Excellencies, in Gaza, the effects of the violence perpetrated on children have been catastrophic. International law is clear: all parties to the conflict have an obligation to protect civilians and ensure the safe and unimpeded delivery of humanitarian assistance.
"We call on all parties to immediately act to protect children. We call on Israel to urgently review its rules of engagement to ensure full compliance with international humanitarian law, notably the protection of civilians, including children, and to conduct thorough and independent investigations of incidents and alleged violations to ensure accountability.
"And we call on all parties to abide by their legal obligations to ensure the survival and wellbeing of the civilian population, including through safe, rapid, and unimpeded humanitarian access.
"We call on Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups to uphold international humanitarian law, including respect for facilities that civilians depend on and the facilitation of unimpeded access. In addition, they should immediately and unconditionally release all hostages held inside Gaza.
"All parties to the conflict should urgently agree to a ceasefire, and we call on this Council to use all tools at its disposal to address human suffering and put an end to this war.
"Lastly, we call on all Member States to use all their leverage to de-escalate the conflict in the meantime.
"Excellencies, the simple truth is that we are failing Gaza's children. Seen through their eyes, our failure is a betrayal of their right to be children. Children who are healthy, safe, and educated. History will judge this failure harshly. And the children will judge it too. Children in Gaza, like children all over the world, deserve peace. Our job is to give children the future they deserve. We simply must do better.
"Thank you."
