The UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, Reem Alsalem, today denounced the level of suffering experienced by the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip as a result of Israeli aggression.
The number of women and children killed in Gaza after more than two months of bombing «surpassed anything we have seen in recent conflicts,» she said in an interview with Al Jazeera television.
Those on the ground in Gaza were at a loss for words to describe the indescribable level of suffering and horror, she said.
Within that hell, being a Palestinian woman or child «really means being stripped of any humanity, dignity, security or special consideration that would normally be given to women or children in times of peace or conflict,» she said.
Last week, the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) warned that nearly one million children have been forcibly displaced since the beginning of the escalation of violence in the coastal enclave.
Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school, have become lifeless piles of rubble, said Adele Khodr, regional director for the Middle East and North Africa.
The Gaza Strip is once again the most dangerous place in the world to be a child, Unicef executive director Catherine Russell warned earlier this month.
For its part, the NGO Save the Children indicated that more than one million minors are at risk of dying as a result of the humanitarian disaster in the territory.