World Children’s Day is globally celebrated on 20th November. This year’s theme, is “For Every Child, Every Right.” This initiative is globally recognized for children’s rights, safety, education, and health. This time, the rights of children are under attack, unfortunately.
World Children’s Day this day at a time when the lives, rights, homes, schools, and dreams of Palestinian children are being deliberately and systematically decimated by the illegal Israeli occupation regime.
Palestinian children face ongoing arbitrary, indiscriminate, and excessive use of force, resulting in a tragic situation of widespread suffering and long-lasting trauma.
This atrocious reality also extends to Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank, where the occupying army and settler militias have displaced dozens of families and murdered 96 children since the start of 2023, including 53 who were killed in the past 44 days.
According to the UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund), 2023 defined this day as “Adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child”. In addition, this statement is under question in many ways.
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In the past six weeks, every 200 children were killed by the Israeli Defense Forces. In this sense, about half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people are children.
Since the October 7 attacks, Israel has killed 5,500 children so far in the Land of Gaza. Now, Gaza can be called the graveyard for children. The research stated that one Palestinian child killed every 10 minutes or about one out of every 200 children in the Gaza Strip.
This illegal occupation defines the reality of fascist dispossession with total violation of international law and the Treaty of Westphalia 1648. This deliberate assault on the prospects of Palestinian children for life in dignity, safety, and freedom reflects an entrenched campaign of cruelty against them and an affront to Palestine’s future.
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement that “Palestinian Child Rights are a fundamental entitlement.” In commemoration of World Children Day, Minister Malki is conveying messages to UN officials, calling upon them to extend international protection to our population, with a particular emphasis on safeguarding the well-being of Palestinian children.
The State of Palestine will actively take determined steps to protect and defend the dignity, rights, and lives of Palestinian children. This includes seeking accountability for war crimes committed against them.
In this regard, we urge the United Nations Secretary-General to incorporate the Israeli occupying forces and settler militias into the United Nations list of parties committing grave violations affecting children in situations of armed conflict, Foreign Ministry stated.
Additionally, the State of Palestine calls on all states, especially the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions, to effectively intervene and bring an end to the ongoing military aggression against Palestinian children.
This should be accomplished by holding Israeli government officials, military commanders, forces, and settlers accountable for their grave breaches and heinous crimes against Palestinian children.
