More than 340 children have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the ceasefire was announced on 10 October 2025 – UNICEF spokesperson Ricardo Pires said in Geneva on 17 October 2026. In the past two weeks seven children were killed and at least 33 seriously injured in air strikes, drone attacks and shelling.

As early as August, UNICEF’s Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Edouard Beigbeder, said that a ceasefire in which on average one child is killed every day is failing children. Families are crowded into roughly a third of the Gaza Strip, in makeshift shelters among rubble and waste.

Hunger and disease

In its statement “Children of Gaza – terrified, attacked, starving, killed”, UNICEF Poland described the children’s plight during the war: malnutrition among children rose by 180 per cent in June 2025 compared with February, and according to the WFP almost one in three people in the Gaza Strip had gone without food for days. Thirteen-year-old Fadi, who was collecting food for his family at a distribution point, said his father had been killed and he had no one who could help his family.

UNICEF’s appeal

UNICEF is calling for a lasting ceasefire, immediate and safe access to the Gaza Strip and aid at scale – food, water, medicines and protection for children. Ricardo Pires stresses that there can be no return to a situation in which children and families do not receive all the supplies, goods and services they need.