Over 13,000 children killed in Gaza, others severely malnourished: UNICEF

The UN agency says surviving children do not ‘even have the energy to cry’ as famine looms in the besieged enclave.

Israel has killed more than 13,000 children in Gaza since October 7 while others are suffering from severe malnutrition and do not “even have the energy to cry”, says the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

“Thousands more have been injured or we can’t even determine where they are. They may be stuck under rubble … We haven’t seen that rate of death among children in almost any other conflict in the world,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell told the CBS News network on Sunday.

“I have been in wards of children who are suffering from severe anaemia malnutrition, the whole ward is absolutely quiet. Because the children, the babies … don’t even have the energy to cry.”

Russell said there were “very great bureaucratic challenges” moving trucks into Gaza for aid and assistance as famine stalks more than two million Palestinians since Israel’s “genocidal” war began.