Respond to the Immediate and Long-term Needs and Rights of Children

October 23, 2023

Thousands of children have been killed or wounded in Gaza and Israel, and thousands more will die or be injured if the conflict is allowed to continue—in particular in Gaza where 50% of the population are children.  Children demand and have a right to special protection and care.  The carnage must stop immediately.  Those who have been injured must be provided specialized attention to their physical and emotional injuries.  And, comprehensive rehabilitation services must be provided beginning now and continuing through their life course. 

Toward these ends, in the short and longer terms:

• An immediate ceasefire must be called and sustained involving all combatants and states.
• Children and their families held hostage must be released as a priority—immediately.
• State-of-the-art military style combat hospitals should be established near the Gaza borders in Egypt and Israel, staffed by medical personnel capable of caring for and triaging children. 
• Medical facilities within Gaza need to be protected.
• Evacuations must be implemented to medical facilities that can provide comprehensive pediatric tertiary and quaternary care—in Israel, Egypt and other centers in the Middle East and Europe.Parents or family members must be allowed to accompany children wherever they are sent for care.
• Deployment of floating hospital facilities capable of caring for children should also be considered.
• Food, water, medicine, temporary shelters, hygiene facilities and other needed humanitarian resources, including fuel to enable hospitals to run effectively, must be supplied immediately, and the siege ended.
• Transportation and other activities required by emergency personnel must be secure.
• Rehabilitation facilities that can provide specialized comprehensive pediatric physical medicine and rehabilitative care need to be established immediately—staffed with pediatric medical and rehabilitation specialists, and provided with appropriate equipment, including prosthetics.
• Palliative care specialists must be engaged to optimize pain and symptom management—in and outside of Gaza.
• Pediatric medical specialists, from countries throughout the world, must be deployed into Gaza to provide care to children who do not require evacuation.
• Trauma-informed child mental health professionals must also be deployed into Gaza. These services must also be provided to children who have been evacuated and children in Israel.
• Families must be assured they can return to Gaza after treatment. 
• Plans for the reconstruction of schools, clinics, hospitals and other child-focused facilities in Gaza should be developed now—with the commitment of required resources.

Nearly every nation in the world has ratified their commitment to fulfill the rights of children to life, optimal survival and development, and health and health care.  Every moral and ethical standard—including those established to prevent war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide—demands the protection of children and provision of the resources and services required to optimize their wellbeing.  

The international community must call for the end to hostilities and press for diplomatic relationships between Israel, the Palestinian people, and countries throughout the Middle East to develop sustainable long-term solutions.  Attacks resulting in the deaths of civilians, and in particular children, must not be allowed to reoccur. 

Children in Gaza and Israel cannot wait.