Gaza Ceasefire Just The Start: Children’s Trauma Must Be Addressed & Accountability Ensured

This ceasefire comes too late for the more than 46,000 people killed by Israel in Gaza.  And for the 1.9 million people who have survived more than 16 months of Israeli bombardment, serious barriers remain to accessing urgently needed humanitarian aid. Humanitarian access and the importing of essential goods must be free and unrestricted. Mental health support, particularly critical for the children in Gaza who are bearing the brunt of this catastrophe, must be able to be delivered at scale.

“These children have lived through the most devastating challenges. The road to recovery and hope will be long, The international community has a solemn responsibility to support this generation of children with funding and with a commitment to accountability,” says Rob Williams, CEO of the War Child Alliance. 

States, international donors and humanitarian organisations must now do everything possible to address children’s trauma. States and donors must be ready to support a Palestinian led, long-term, wide-ranging rehabilitation programme for all the children of Gaza. That programme must include multi-year flexible funding to support mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS), education and child protection.

At the same time, in a war that has seen international humanitarian law routinely violated on a mass scale, there can only be recovery if there is justice. War Child calls on states to hold all parties accountable for their flagrant violations of international law. This must include accountability for Israel's actions in Gaza that the UN has deemed to constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“After 466 days of destruction and devastation, this ceasefire announcement brings mixed emotions: anger, hope, grief, relief. War Child will seize this opportunity to rapidly scale up our assistance to help children recover and give them the opportunity to build a future,” adds War Child Country Director for the Occupied Palestinian Territory (oPt), Sahar Smoom.

War Child is primed to expand its response providing vital aid, protection, education and sustained mental health support to over 1 million children across Gaza and the West Bank over three years. This necessarily ambitious plan will be implemented through scalable, evidence-based interventions and War Child’s strong partnerships in Gaza with 22 local civil organisations and international NGOs.

War Child has worked tirelessly to support more than 117,000 children in Gaza since the beginning of the latest war in Gaza and has been present in Gaza since 2006. Various initiatives have focused on strengthening children’s resilience, from individual counselling establishing safe spaces where they can play and learn; to providing essentials such as food and hygiene products to families in need.