More than 200 children have been killed in Lebanon, almost two months after the start of the war between Israel and Hezbollah, UNICEF warned on Tuesday, an average of “more than three” per day.
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“Although more than 200 children have been killed in Lebanon in less than two months, a disconcerting trend is emerging: these deaths are being greeted with inertia by those in a position to put an end to this violence,” said a spokesperson. speech of the United Nations Children’s Fund, James Elder, during a press briefing in Geneva.
“We must hope that humanity will never again witness such carnage of children as in Gaza, but there are frightening similarities for the children of Lebanon,” he said.
“In Lebanon, in the same way as in Gaza, the intolerable is quietly transforming into acceptable,” added the spokesperson, denouncing “a silent normalization of horror.”
The pro-Iranian movement Hezbollah opened a front against Israel the day after the unprecedented attack by Hamas on Israeli soil on October 7, 2023, which triggered the war in the Gaza Strip, saying it was acting in support of the Islamist movement. Palestinian.
After a year of cross-border firefights in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah and Israel entered into open war on September 23, and the Israeli army has been carrying out incursions into southern Lebanon since September 30.
“The figure of a little over 200 (children killed, editor’s note) was only reached in the last two months” and “there have been at least 231” killed in Lebanon since the start of the war in Lebanon. Gaza in October 2023, Elder said.
Unicef “does not name” those responsible “but anyone who follows the media should have a fairly clear idea of how these children were killed, where the rockets were fired from, where these children were, in the place they were fleeing… the same thing as in Gaza,” noted the spokesperson.
More than 3,500 people have been killed in Lebanon since October 8, according to the Ministry of Health, the majority since September 23. On the Israeli side, 46 civilians and 78 soldiers were killed.
Israel says it wants to distance Hezbollah from the border regions of southern Lebanon to ensure the return home of some 60,000 residents of northern Israel displaced by the movement’s fire for more than a year. In Lebanon, tens of thousands of residents have also been displaced.
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