At least 67 Palestinian children have been killed in the Gaza Strip since a United States-brokered ceasefire came into effect, the United Nations Children’s Fund said on Friday.
Speaking at a news conference in Geneva, UNICEF spokesperson Ricardo Pires said the death toll includes a baby girl killed in an Israeli air strike on a home in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis on Thursday. It also includes seven other children killed a day earlier, as Israel carried out a wave of attacks across the enclave.
A pattern UNICEF calls staggering
“This is during an agreed ceasefire. The pattern is staggering,” Pires told reporters, referring to the death toll since October 11, the first full day of the truce between Israel and Hamas. The wave of strikes this week came in response to what the Israeli military said was an incident in which its troops were fired upon in Khan Younis. Hamas rejected Israel’s claim, saying the latest strikes — which killed at least 32 Palestinians — were “a dangerous escalation.”
The figures add to a grim toll kept by Gaza’s Health Ministry, which says at least 1,580 Palestinians have been killed and 5,711 injured since the ceasefire began in October 2025. The United Nations human rights office warned on Friday that Israeli forces were continuing to displace Palestinians in Gaza, raising concerns of ethnic cleansing.
A truce that is not holding for children
UNICEF’s count underlines how little the ceasefire has changed daily life for Gaza’s children. Schools remain shuttered or destroyed, hospitals run short of supplies, and aid deliveries fall far short of what the truce promised: 600 trucks a day were supposed to enter the enclave, but only about 150 are being allowed in, according to Al Jazeera’s reporting from Gaza.
Doctors Without Borders said on Thursday that restrictions on food and aid had manufactured a malnutrition crisis, with rising levels of malnutrition among pregnant women and a growing risk of premature births. With talks on a permanent end to the war stalled and both sides dug in over disarmament and withdrawal, UNICEF’s warning is a reminder that the youngest victims of the conflict are still dying — even under a ceasefire.
Sources: Al Jazeera (UNICEF), 6 Nov 2026; Al Jazeera, 6 Nov 2026.
Related coverage: Gaza Strikes Kill Four Palestinians Despite Year-Old Ceasefire | France Rebukes World Over Gaza as Canada Pledges $71m Aid
