U.N. says over 200 children killed in Lebanon in under two months

A child looks on, as members of security forces attempt to evict displaced people from an old hotel, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in the Hamra neighbourhood of Beirut, Lebanon on October 21, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The U.N. said Tuesday (November 19, 2024) that over 200 children have been killed in Lebanon in the less than two months since Israel escalated its attacks targeting Hezbollah.

“Despite more than 200 children killed in Lebanon in less than two months, a disconcerting pattern has emerged: their deaths are met with inertia from those able to stop this violence,” James Elder, spokesman for the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, told reporters in Geneva.

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“Over the last two months in Lebanon, an average of three children have been killed every single day,” he said.

“Many, many more have been injured and traumatised,” he added, highlighting that in the past two months, more than 1,100 children had been hurt in the violence.

Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel in October last year in support of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza.

Since September, Israel has conducted extensive bombing campaigns in Lebanon primarily targeting Hezbollah strongholds, though some strikes have hit areas outside the Iran-backed group’s control.

Since the clashes began with Hezbollah attacks on Israel, more than 3,510 people in Lebanon have been killed, according to authorities in the country, with most fatalities recorded since late September.

Elder said that since the war erupted in Gaza after October 7 last year, at least 231 children had been killed in Lebanon.

“We must hope humanity never again witnesses the ongoing level of carnage of children in Gaza, though there are chilling similarities for children in Lebanon,” he said.

He pointed to the hundreds of thousands of children who have become homeless in Lebanon, and “disproportionate attacks, of which many frequently hit infrastructure children rely on”.

“Medical facilities are being attacked and health workers are being killed at an increasing speed,” he said.

He highlighted that as of November 15, more than 200 health workers had been killed and 300 injured, according to Lebanese authorities.

“The most worrying parallel to Gaza,” he said, was that “the escalation of children killed is eliciting no meaningful response from those with influence”.

“In Lebanon, much the same as has become the case in Gaza, the intolerable is quietly transforming into the acceptable. And the appalling is slipping into the realm of the expected.”