News - Middle East: Addressing the UN Security Council last week, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said a child is killed every 10 minutes in the besieged Gaza Strip.

"Hospital corridors crammed with the injured, the sick, the dying. Morgues overflowing. Surgery without anesthesia. Tens of thousands of displaced people sheltering at hospitals," Tedros told the council, pointing to the grave humanitarian catastrophe.
The concern was earlier echoed by UNICEF spokesperson James Elder at a press briefing at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, describing Gaza as a “graveyard for thousands of children.”
“Our gravest fears about the reported numbers of children killed becoming dozens, then hundreds, and ultimately thousands were realized in just a fortnight,” Elder said on October 31.
“Gaza has become a graveyard for thousands of children. It’s a living hell for everyone else.”
Earlier this week, the country director for CARE International in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, also said that almost 70 percent of those killed in Gaza are women and children, repeating what Tedros said that “a child is killed every 10 minutes” in the coastal territory.
The Israeli regime launched its genocidal campaign on Gaza immediately after the Hamas-led Palestinian resistance surprised Tel Aviv and its Western allies with an unprecedented military operation 'Al-Aqsa Storm' (also known as Al-Aqsa Flood) on October 7.
Over the past seven weeks, Israeli warplanes have been indiscriminately pounding the densely populated territory, including hospitals and schools, with the death toll surpassing 13,000 now.
More than 5,500 are believed to be children and over 3,500 are women, with 30,000 more people wounded, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in the Gaza Strip.
Ismail al-Thawabta, director of the media office in Gaza, said the number of missing persons has risen to 6,000, including 4,000 children and women trapped under the rubble of destroyed buildings.
Calls for the ceasefire have so far been dismissed by the Tel Aviv regime, despite world leaders, including UN Secretary-General António Guterres, emphasizing its urgency.