Afghan Voice Agency (AVA) - International Service: In 1925, International Children's Day was first determined and named in the city of Geneva during the World Conference on the Welfare of Children. Following this decision, November 20 (29 Scorpio) has been named International Children's Day by the United Nations.

 

Children's Day is an official date that is celebrated every year in honor of children; This date is different in different countries.

 

While the world wakes up on that day to celebrate this day, there are children all over the earth for whom holding such a day is a bitter and biting joke. We live in a world where International Children's Day coincides with infanticide in a land that has been forcibly occupied for more than seven decades!

 

The world is preparing to honor this day; But surely on that day the children of Gaza will wake up terrified by the sound of cannons and bombardment and they will ask themselves why their wake-up call for celebrating the children's party is so loud?!

 

Al-Aqsa storm; The beginning of killing children

 

In response to the desecration of the Al-Aqsa Mosque by the Zionist regime and the pressures on the Palestinians in recent years, the Palestinian resistance forces launched a surprise operation on October 7 called Al-Aqsa Storm against the positions of the Zionist regime. The resistance closed all the border crossings and has been bombing the Gaza Strip since that day. The United Nations Population Fund announced that about 70% of the victims of the aggression of the Zionist regime in Gaza, which has continued since 45 days ago, are women and children.

 

According to the latest statistics of Palestinian authorities, since then at least 13,000 Palestinians have been martyred and more than 40,000 people have been injured. Israel has martyred at least 5,500 children and 3,500 women living in Gaza.

 

Half of Gaza's population of 2.3 million people are children, and the number of children martyred in this area in the first 3 weeks of Israel's attacks is higher than the average number of children martyred in the whole world in the last 3 years. According to Palestinian sources, 5 Palestinian children die every hour in Gaza. More than 3,000 children have been martyred in Palestine over the past 3 weeks, according to data from the UK-based NGO "Save the Children," citing health officials in Gaza.

 

The World Health Organization announced that a significant portion of the nearly 40,000 people injured in Palestine since October 7 are children.

 

In the United Nations reports entitled "Armed conflicts and children" (published on April 25, 2023), it is stated; In 2022, 2 thousand 985 children in 24 countries of the world, in 2021, 2 thousand 515 children and in 2020, 2 thousand 674 children have lost their lives. According to the 2019 United Nations report, 4,190 children were killed in conflicts around the world.

 

The Palestinian Ministry of Health released a 212-page report containing the names, identification information and ages of victims of Israeli attacks on Gaza between October 7 and 26, 2023. Based on this, 2,913 of the 7,028 people killed in Palestine are children. This is why children in Gaza are given different names and nicknames these days; Nameless children, children of war, wandering souls, and... and this is the fate of children who are born in Gaza.

 

Is infanticide a systematic act?

 

One of the important issues that have been raised in recent decades regarding the Zionist regime is the systematic killing of Palestinian children by this regime. Infanticide does not belong to today, this year or this decade. This is a process that has been going on for seven decades and its peak can be seen in the current war in Gaza.

 

For the leaders of Tel Aviv, a Palestinian child is a potential force for the resistance, and killing it is actually eliminating a member of the resistance forces before he takes up a gun.

 

In one of the television programs, a Palestinian child is asked what will you do when you grow up? In his answer to the presenter who raises this question, he gives a very interesting answer that shows the depth of the tragedy that is going on in the occupied territories. The child says with exemplary calmness, "A Palestinian child will never grow up and die before he gets to the stage of choosing a job!"

 

The killing of Palestinian children is so terrible and sad that the Secretary General of the United Nations and other human rights organizations have raised their voices, and they have called the killing of children genocide or Israel's move towards genocide many times in the last few days, and they have called for an end to this killing.

 

Since October 7, Israeli fighter jets have relentlessly bombarded the 25-mile strip of Gaza. Rond Abdul Fattah, the host of the American National Radio NPR, writes in an article he published in the Atlantic: There are no children in Gaza. This is what my mother says. There are no children. Only old souls exist in miniature bodies. How can you be a child when you face the prospect of death from the moment you are born?

 

international organization; Tired of the rampage in Palestine

 

One of the challenges faced by Palestinian children these days is the lack of support for their rights by relevant international organizations. UNICEF is a global organization that deals with children. 

It has been 60 years since the establishment of this institution and it has become the first reference for governmental and non-governmental organizations and is more interested in collecting information and research about children than any other organization.

 

But many groups, governments and individuals have criticized UNICEF for its poor performance on children's issues. One of the most surprising inactions of this organization is against the killing of Palestinian children in Gaza.

 

Education Foundation (EAA) is another organization supporting children in the world. This organization has performed much worse than UNICEF, and it has reached a point where Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, mother of Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Emir of Qatar, who heads this foundation, because of the inability of this organization to fulfill its role and support Palestinian children. In Gaza, he resigned from his position as UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador.