There are over 20,000 children in Gaza who are missing, Save the Children estimates, in addition to the over 15,000 children who have been killed amid Israel’s genocide and campaign of extermination.
In February, UNICEF estimated that at least 17,000 children in Gaza are unaccompanied or separated from their families, or about 1 percent of the 1.7 million Palestinians who Israel has forced out of their homes. Many children have been separated from their families in recent weeks amid Israel’s bloody assault on Rafah, Save the Children says.
Based on the UN’s May estimate that 10,000 people are buried under the rubble in Gaza, Save the Children calculated that 4,000 of these people are children. This means that an estimated 21,000 children are missing, based on estimates by humanitarian groups, with many likely dead.
The number of children missing may be far higher. Save the Children notes that there is an unknown number of children buried in mass graves, and the UN has reported that children have been found in mass graves with signs of torture and executions in recent months. Additionally, many children have been “disappeared” by Israeli forces — kidnapped and sent to torture camps in undisclosed locations, where many have reported being subject to assault and horrific conditions by Israeli guards.
Indeed, on top of the mass killing of children and their families, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society said on Monday that Israel has been escalating arrests of children in the West Bank, with seven children arrested in the past 24 hours and an estimated 240 children still imprisoned by Israeli forces.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, children are facing death around every corner due to Israel’s all-out assault. The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) reported last week that there are at least 50,000 children who require medical treatment for malnutrition due to Israel’s starvation campaign.
In other words, 36,000 children in Gaza have been killed by Israel.
15,000 killed by Isreal. The other 21,000 are unaccounted for. Now I know you’re making the “joke” that if the 21,000 are “missing” that they must have been killed. And you’re probably not wrong to some extent. However, unaccounted for isn’t always the same as dead. If I were a kid in Palestine, and bombs started raining down, I’d get the fuck out too…and if my parents don’t know where I am, but I’m alive, then I can try to contact them later. Assuming of coarse that the parents are still alive.
And sure, a portion, maybe even a large portion of those 21,000 actually are dead. We don’t KNOW that, but it is a reasonable guess. The hard part is figuring out just how many of the 21,000 are alive, and how many are dead.
I say this because on 9/11, depending on which reports you base your knowledge on, somewhere between 3k-6k officially were declaired dead. Which is still a tragedy no matter what the numbers are. However on the day of the attacks, my local NBC news channel was saying the estimated deaths were close to 60,000 for the two towers, as that’s how many people had gone missing.
Well…turns out a large portion of that 60k made a decision in the moment that survival was more important than logistics and numbers. Get out while you can, stay alive, and contact people later when it’s safe. That’s what they did on 9/11, and I assume some portion of those kids are doing the same now in Palestine.
So let’s not take a situation which is already a tragedy, with no end in sight, and claim it to be the absolute worst case scenario it can be, when in reality, it’s probably less than that. We just don’t know by how much yet, and may not for years.
First responders and medical care were readily available after 9/11, thankfully.
In Gaza, Israel has crippled the medical system by attacking the vast majority of hospitals and much international aid. Additionally, the bombings and Rafah invasion haven’t stopped.
Ah yes let me just get the fuck out of this open air prison as an 11 year old little girl :)
These excuses are just getting lamer.
The reality is probably that even more are dead. This is the new holocaust.
I think you may have lost your mind indeed.