<\/p>\n
29 May 2026<\/p>\n
This is a summary of what was said by ±¬ÁÏÍøICEF Communication Specialist, Salim Oweis \u2013 to whom quoted text may be attributed \u2013 at today’s press briefing at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.<\/p>\n
GAZA\/GENEVA, 29 May 2026<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 \u201cFailure to meet children\u2019s basic needs in Gaza is trapping them in an endless cycle of suffering.<\/p>\n \u201cThe experiences of the desperate parents I met this past week can illustrate this better than I could:<\/p>\n \u201cHind hasn\u2019t slept since her four-year-old daughter, Masa, was bitten by a rat during the night.<\/p>\n \u201cLike many families, they sheltered wherever they could \u2013 in their case, the second floor of a building block where sewage water leaks through the ceilings, and rodents crawl through the cracks in the building and climb the exposed pipes.<\/p>\n \u201cAmani\u2019s daughter, Lemar, she\u2019s 7, has developed deep lesions and sores on her head, back and legs due to a bacterial infection. Amani tries to clean her wounds each day with the little, hard-to-get, clean water she has, as her daughter screams in agony.<\/p>\n \u201cAbdallah\u2019s mother told me that he has developed a skin infection as they live in a tent next to sand contaminated with faeces. His mother has spoken to doctors and desperately needs the medication and enough clean water and hygiene products to help him heal and protect him from exposure to more infections.<\/p>\n \u201cAbdel Aleem said that his 8 months old son, Ahmad, and his pregnant sister-in-law were both bitten a couple of weeks ago. They have layered sandbags around the outside of the tent to try to protect themselves, but the rats simply chew through it \u2013 stopping them is futile.<\/p>\n \u201cThe common thread running through every one of these conversations is the sheer heartbreak of parents who no longer feel able to do the thing most innate to them \u2013 protect their children\u2019s health and safety.<\/p>\n \u201cOne look at the conditions that people are being forced to live in is enough to understand why.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know that Gaza was already one of the most densely populated places in the world. Now, people have been crammed into around 40 per cent of the space left to them \u2013 sheltering among broken buildings, rubble and mounting solid waste.<\/p>\n \u201cFamilies across Gaza do not have enough clean water, they are forced to choose between drinking, washing and cooking with what little they have.<\/p>\n \u201c±¬ÁÏÍøICEF is trying to reach as many people as possible with clean water\u2013 up to one and a half million people a month \u2013 but there are significant obstacles:<\/p>\n \u201cFirstly \u2013 deadly attacks on water operations, including recently at Al Mansoura filling point, where two ±¬ÁÏÍøICEF-contracted truck drivers were killed whilst trying to collect water. Now, this main water filling station \u2013 which more than a quarter of a million people rely on \u2013 is inaccessible.<\/p>\n \u201cSecondly, items needed to sustain water systems and repair damaged water infrastructure \u2013 including: lubricant oil, water treatment chemicals and spare parts \u2013 are not being allowed in at the scale needed, meaning we cannot repair systems as quickly as needed to reach more children with clean water, and existing systems risk failure due to lack of maintenance and overuse. If we cannot repair systems, then we have to rely solely on water trucking which is much more expensive and doesn\u2019t reach populations as effectively.<\/p>\n \u201cThirdly, solid waste is piling up by the day. This, alongside rubble, needs clearing at a scale that is currently impossible because there is no accessible space left to clear it to.<\/p>\n \u201cThe effects of this are now widely apparent: children with respiratory infections, acute watery\u00a0diarrhea, and more than half of all households reporting skin diseases. Fleas, lice, and scabies are commonplace. Increasing numbers of children are requiring hospitalization. All without a single fully functioning hospital across Gaza.<\/p>\n \u201cThe picture is similarly stark when it comes to children\u2019s nutrition. While we have managed to reverse the famine, the number of malnourished and vulnerable children remain extremely serious. More than two years of food insecurity, poor housing, limited water, terrible sanitary conditions and regular disease outbreaks has left the population extremely vulnerable. Without enough clean water and fuel to cook proper meals, even children who recover with treatment will quickly fall back in a cycle of malnutrition \u2013 the effects of which can last a lifetime.<\/p>\n \u201cNo parent should be in a position where they cannot provide their child with the basic needs to keep them healthy. No parent should have to watch as their child writhes in pain from lesions or buckle from weakness because of entirely preventable diarrhoea. That this is happening should be \u2013 to everyone \u2013 entirely unconscionable.<\/p>\n \u201cAccess to water, adequate nutritious food, and health care should not be conditional for any child, anywhere.<\/p>\n \u201c±¬ÁÏÍøICEF is calling for safe unfettered access to deliver humanitarian operations, the lifting of restrictions on items needed to quickly repair and sustain water and sanitation systems, and for international humanitarian law to be upheld.<\/p>\n \u201cOnly then will children in Gaza start to break free from the cycle of suffering they are trapped in.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 29 May 2026 This is a summary of what was said by ±¬ÁÏÍøICEF Communication Specialist, Salim Oweis \u2013 to whom quoted text may be attributed \u2013 at today’s press briefing at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. GAZA\/GENEVA, 29 May 2026\u00a0\u2013 \u201cFailure to meet children\u2019s basic needs in Gaza is trapping them in an […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"country":[],"document-category":[2565,1338],"document-source":[2105],"committee-meeting":[],"document-subject":[2033,5358,6872,6996,2005,2533,2273],"entity":[1729],"document-language":[6542],"class_list":["post-318606","document","type-document","status-publish","hentry","document-category-press-briefing","document-category-statement","document-source-united-nations-childrens-fund-unicef","document-subject-children","document-subject-ClosuresCurfewsBlockades","document-subject-disease","document-subject-famine","document-subject-gaza-strip","document-subject-health","document-subject-water","entity-united-nations-system","document-language-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/318606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/document"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/318606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":318611,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/318606\/revisions\/318611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=318606"},{"taxonomy":"document-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-category?post=318606"},{"taxonomy":"document-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-source?post=318606"},{"taxonomy":"committee-meeting","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/committee-meeting?post=318606"},{"taxonomy":"document-subject","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-subject?post=318606"},{"taxonomy":"entity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entity?post=318606"},{"taxonomy":"document-language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-language?post=318606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}