Inger Ashing, Save the Children’s Chief Executive Officer,says:

We are running out of words to describe the horror unfolding for Gaza’s children. Most of them have been forcibly displaced, squeezed into a tiny sliver of land that cannot accommodate them. Those who haven’t been forced from their homes are cut-off from the basics needed for survival, far away from the little amount of humanitarian assistance that can be delivered.

Those who have survived the bombardment so far face the imminent risk of starvation and disease. Our teams are telling us of maggots being picked from wounds, and children undergoing amputations without anesthetic. Children are enduring and witnessing horrors, while the world looks on. The level of human suffering is intolerable.

As humanitarian agencies have been repeatedly warning: there is nowhere safe in Gaza. We have sounded the alarm for weeks and the world has failed to act.

Humanitarian assistance has become the only lifeline for children and their families since this escalation began – and now, even that is becoming increasingly impossible. We are simply unable to do our job effectively.

The intensity of hostilities and the weaponisation of aid by the Israeli authorities, including drip-feeding of food, water, and medicine, to a population under siege, mean we simply cannot reach children throughoutGaza at the scale required. Our ability to fulfil our duty to keep our teams safe has been destroyed. Our collective responsibility to protect children has been thwarted.

What kind of future will the children who survive the onslaught face? They have lost their families, their homes and schools have been destroyed, they have suffered unimaginable mental harm. We cannot also let them lose hope that the world will act, and that humanity will prevail.

We must heed the lessons from the past and must prevent ‘atrocity crimes’ from unfolding.

I received this message from my team in the occupied Palestinian territory today: ‘We are failing the children of Gaza.’ But this is outside of our control. The world has a responsibility to act immediately.