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Fifteen children have been killed in Lebanon and 62 injured over the last seven days, despite the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
According to an AFP report, the United Nations (UN) confirmed this on Friday.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the UN children’s agency, called the figures “staggering” and stated that under international humanitarian law, children must be protected at all times during conflict.
“According to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health, 77 children have reportedly been killed or injured over the past week alone. Fifteen children killed and 62 injured in seven days. That’s an average of 11 children every 24 hours.
“We understand the vast majority of these children were impacted by airstrikes in south Lebanon. Only yesterday, seven children were killed and 30 injured,” UNICEF spokesman Ricardo Pires told a media briefing in Geneva.
A ceasefire between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah was supposed to have taken effect on April 17 but has never been observed. Both parties accuse each other of violating it and justify their attacks by the other camp’s alleged breaches. In total, 55 children have been killed and 212 wounded since the ceasefire was announced, Pires said.
Also, the UNICEF spokesman called for all parties to respect the ceasefire and to comply at all times with international humanitarian law, under which “children and civilian infrastructure must be protected at all times”.
Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war in early March when Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel over the killing of Iran’s supreme leader in US-Israeli attacks, prompting Israeli strikes and a ground invasion.
