In the four months of war with Israel, more children have been killed in the Gaza Strip than in four years of conflict worldwide, the head of the UN agency for Palestine refugees (Unrwa) said on Tuesday, as quoted by AFP.

“Amazing. The number of children allegedly killed in just four months in Gaza exceeds the number of children killed in four years in all conflicts worldwide,” Philip Lazzarini wrote on X, condemning the “war on children.”

“War on Children”

In his message, he referred to UN data, according to which 12,193 children were killed in conflicts worldwide from 2019 to 2022.

He compared the figures to reports from the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip that more than 12,300 children had died in the Palestinian territories between October and the end of February.

“This war is a war against children. This is a war against their childhood and their future,” Lazzarini said.

That war began with an unprecedented attack by Hamas on October 7, which killed an estimated 1,160 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures.

The militants also took about 250 hostages, dozens of whom were released during a week-long truce in November. According to Israeli estimates, there are still about 130 prisoners in Gaza, 32 of whom are believed to be dead.

According to Israel’s health ministry, Israeli bombing and ground offensives in response killed 31,184 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children.