2/3 of Gaza victims are women, children – UN

Two thirds of the victims killed in Gaza by the Israeli aggression are women and children, said the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday.

Briefers at the council spoke of the disastrous situation for women and children in the Gaza Strip.

They highlighted acute stresses and needs of mothers, declaring Gaza to be the most dangerous place in the world for a child to live.

Sima Sami Bahous, Executive Director of the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women), said that women and girls pay the highest price when armed conflicts erupt.

Since the seventh of October, 67 percent of the more than 14,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza are women and children.

“That is two mothers killed every hour and seven women every two hours,” she added.

Every day, 180 women give birth without water, painkillers, anaesthesia for C-sections, electricity for incubators or medical supplies, she said, explaining the horrendous situation.

Mothers go without food so that their children can live another day.

“Women in Gaza have told us that they pray for peace, but that if peace does not come, they pray for a quick death, in their sleep, with their children in their arms,” Bahous explained. “It should shame us all that any mother, anywhere, has such a prayer.”

Catherine Russell, Executive Director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), called for an urgent humanitarian ceasefire, adding that pauses are not enough for children to survive.

“No place is safe in the Gaza Strip”, she stressed.