The ceasefire sparks hope among many around the world.
Hooray, hooray, the orphan crushing machine has been stopped for a day.
Has it been dismantled? No.
Will it start again? Undoubtedly.
Old conflict
For though the ceasefire in Gaza is a huge relief following the deadliest war since this ongoing conflict began in 1948 – or centuries ago – it is by my count the fourth ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the past two decades.
Or maybe the fifth? Are we counting that last ceasefire in March? There are a lot more orphans now. And a lot more dead kids.
Last week, the Guardian published a list of the named dead children of Gaza since the Israe li offensive began, following the horrific Hamas attack on 7 October 2023 (which already left 38 Israeli children dead). By the end of July, there were 18 457 children under 18 on that list.
This includes 973 babies below the age of one. It includes four-month-old Omar, crushed under rubble alongside his two-year-old brother Abdel.
It includes five-year-old Hind – one of 1 007 named five-year-olds – who was alone for hours in a car with her dying and dead aunt, uncle and cousins. It includes her cousin, Layan – one of the 1,103 15-year-olds – who made the phone call to emergency services before being killed herself, and then only Hind remained, crying desperately for help on the end of the line.
Red Crescent paramedics tried to find her, but their bombed-out ambulance was recovered two weeks later. Hind was dead too, the family car riddled with 335 bullet holes.
The list includes 964 two-year-olds, 995 three-year-olds, 924 four-year-olds and so forth, unrelenting, all the way through to 1 265 17 year olds.
Children and teenagers make up nearly a third of the counted dead of Gaza, while many more are unaccounted for, or unidentified, buried under collapsed buildings, or torn apart by bombs.
That’s not including those who have died from starvation, disease, and lack of access to sanitation and medicine.
Meanwhile, some 40 000 children have been wounded: Gaza now has more child amputees than anywhere on the planet.
But hooray, the orphan crush ing machine has been turned off. They can go home, or what remains of home, since 70% of buildings are either unusable or obliterated… How can anyone think this will end here?.
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