{"id":194590,"date":"2014-08-07T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-12T16:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/?p=194590"},"modified":"2019-03-12T16:50:21","modified_gmt":"2019-03-12T16:50:21","slug":"auto-insert-194590","status":"publish","type":"document","link":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/document\/auto-insert-194590\/","title":{"rendered":"Destruction in Gaza haunts families and children amid ceasefire – UNICEF news note"},"content":{"rendered":"
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News note<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

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Reality of Gaza destruction haunts families and children amid ceasefire<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

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JERUSALEM, 7 August 2014<\/strong> – As the three-day ceasefire in Gaza draws to a close, families are struggling to cope with the aftermath of 28 days of violence and destruction that has left an estimated 65,000 people homeless.  
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\n"Of the last three conflicts in Gaza, this has been the longest, deadliest and most destructive," said June Kunugi, UNICEF Representative in the State of Palestine. "Its human and material toll is beyond words."
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\nMore than one fourth of Gaza's residents were displaced during the latest conflict. The three-day ceasefire allowed families to visit their homes, but many had to return to collective shelters when the full extent of the damage to their houses became apparent.
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\nOvercrowding at UN-run shelters, many of them schools, is making it difficult to provide these families with basic needs and clean conditions to prevent the spread of diseases. Diarrhoea and skin diseases among children are on the rise.
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\nBasic services are severely disrupted. Access to water is constrained for 1.5 million people and the lack of electricity is affecting water distribution, sanitation and health services.
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\nAround 400,000 children are showing symptoms of distress, including bed wetting, clinging to parents and nightmares, and need psychosocial support. Half of Gaza's 1.8 million people are children under the age of 18.
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\nFrom the very first days of the current escalation, UNICEF-supported emergency psychosocial teams have been deployed to provide initial psychosocial support to affected children, reaching 1,870 children across the Gaza Strip so far.
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\nTo improve conditions in collective shelters, UNICEF, in partnership with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, distributed 1,500 adult hygiene kits, 1,000 baby hygiene kits, 1,388 jerry cans, and 4,000 blankets. Plans are under way to provide 24,000 clothing items for children and women.
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\n"The uphill struggle to heal children's physical and psychological wounds and restore Gaza's demolished infrastructure is a gargantuan task," Kunugi said.
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\nAccording to UNICEF's latest verified figures, at least 429 children were killed in the last month as a result of airstrikes and shelling, an indication of the devastating toll that the latest escalation of violence has taken on Gaza's youngest and most vulnerable.
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\nSince the ceasefire went into effect on Monday morning, no additional child deaths have been recorded.
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\nAt least 2,744 children have also been reported injured. Some of the young victims, who suffered debilitating injuries for which no treatment is available in Gaza, need to be referred for treatment outside the coastal enclave.
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\nAbout UNICEF<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

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UNICEF promotes the rights and wellbeing of every child, in everything we do. Together with our partners, we work in 190 countries and territories to translate that commitment into practical action, focusing special effort on reaching the most vulnerable and excluded children, to the benefit of all children, everywhere. For more information about UNICEF and its work, visit: <\/span>www.unicef.org<\/u><\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

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Follow us on <\/span>Twitter<\/u><\/a> <\/span>and<\/span> <\/span>Facebook<\/u><\/a>
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\n<\/strong><\/span>Note to editors<\/strong><\/span>: UNICEF has been in Gaza since the early 1990s, working to support children and families with access to basic services including water, sanitation education, health and mine-awareness. UNICEF needs approximately $14 million to respond to the mounting humanitarian needs caused by this latest escalation.<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

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For multimedia content, please visit:<\/span> <\/span>http:\/\/weshare.unicef.org\/MediaResources<\/u><\/a>
\n<\/span>For more information, please contact:
\n<\/strong><\/span>Catherine Weibel, UNICEF Jerusalem, Tel: + 972 54 77 87 604,<\/span> <\/span>cweibel@unicef.org<\/u><\/a>
\n<\/span>Najwa Mekki, UNICEF New York, Tel: + 1917 209 1804, <\/span>nmekki@unicef.org<\/u><\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

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Juliette Touma, UNICEF Amman, Tel: +962-79-826-34-37<\/span>, <\/span>jtouma@unicef.org<\/u><\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

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News note Reality of Gaza destruction haunts families and children amid ceasefire JERUSALEM, 7 August 2014 – As the three-day ceasefire in Gaza draws to a close, families are struggling to cope with the aftermath of 28 days of violence and destruction that has left an estimated 65,000 people homeless.     "Of the last three conflicts […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"country":[],"document-category":[2453,2477,1587,1329],"document-source":[2105],"committee-meeting":[],"document-subject":[1769,1945,1829,2265,2033,2005,2533,5200,2613,2349,3589,1745,2729,2273],"entity":[1729],"document-language":[6542],"class_list":["post-194590","document","type-document","status-publish","hentry","document-category-article","document-category-news-item","document-category-note","document-category-press-release","document-source-united-nations-childrens-fund-unicef","document-subject-armed-conflict","document-subject-assistance","document-subject-casualties","document-subject-ceasefire","document-subject-children","document-subject-gaza-strip","document-subject-health","document-subject-humanitarian-relief","document-subject-internally-displaced-persons","document-subject-living-conditions","document-subject-population","document-subject-refugees-and-displaced-persons","document-subject-shelter","document-subject-water","entity-united-nations-system","document-language-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/194590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/document"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/194590\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=194590"},{"taxonomy":"document-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-category?post=194590"},{"taxonomy":"document-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-source?post=194590"},{"taxonomy":"committee-meeting","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/committee-meeting?post=194590"},{"taxonomy":"document-subject","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-subject?post=194590"},{"taxonomy":"entity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entity?post=194590"},{"taxonomy":"document-language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-language?post=194590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}