“From playground to killing fields, violence always originates from somebody or someone else. ‘When peace comes, we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons,’ Golda Meir said, ‘but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons.’ ‘Peace will come,’ she went on, ‘when the Arabs love their children more than they hate us.’ The casual racism – love and hatred distributed so callously between the two peoples – is one thing; but it is the shedding of all responsibility for Israeli state violence by lodging it inside the hearts and minds of the enemy {‘You made me do it”) that I find most chilling.”
Jacqueline Rose, London Review of Books December Vol 45 #24 “You made me do it”
“I wish the war would end soon. I want to go back to my school. I miss my teachers and my friends,” Maha (11), Rafah.
Over 625,000 students remain with no access to education or safety. Most schools in Gaza are damaged, destroyed or used to accommodate displaced people. Photo by UNICEF/Eyad El Baba, 8 January 2024
Between the afternoons of 16 and 17 January, according to the Ministry of Health (MoH) in Gaza, 163 Palestinians were killed, and another 350 people were injured. Between 7 October 2023 and 12:00 on 17 January 2024, at least 24,448 Palestinians were killed in Gaza and 61,504 Palestinians were injured, according to the MoH.
“I want to return home desperately and play with all my toys,” says Mohammed.
Unfortunately, Mohammed and his family were forced to evacuate their home due to the ongoing escalation of hostilities. For now, home is the tent. The family sleeps on the bare floor.
Mohammed is battling cancer, a condition he has bravely endured since he was 3 months old. Amid the current ongoing escalation, children like Mohammed are enduring unimaginable suffering, stripped of their basic rights, surrounded by fear, and deprived of basic necessities like food, clean water, medicine and the fulfilment of their fundamental rights as children.
“Whenever I hear the loud explosions, I rush to my mum and cry,” says Mohammed’s brother, 6-year-old Salah, expressing the deep fear that grips him. In the Gaza Strip, over a million children like Mohammad and Salah find themselves trapped in dire circumstances marked by destruction, relentless attacks, displacement, and acute shortages of essential necessities.
In collaboration with the Ministry of Social Development and supported by UK FCDO and EU Humanitarian Aid, UNICEF is providing humanitarian cash assistance to families to help them meet their needs.
Cash transfers – one of the most effective forms of humanitarian assistance – enable families to purchase essential items like food, water, and hygiene products. Since the start of the escalation, UNICEF distributed humanitarian cash assistance to over 500,000 people, reaching 233,656 children.
“We used the money to get crucial supplies for the children: milk, diapers, medicine for my sick child and flour for making bread,” says Eman, Mohammad’s mother.
“I long for an end to this conflict, yearn