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Conflict in the Middle East

27 children have been murdered by the IOF every day for 650 days in Gaza (UNICEF)

652 replies

Wedonttalkaboutboris · 19/07/2025 15:12

Facts:

  • At least 15,000 children have been killed since the war began in October 2023.
  • Many have died in airstrikes, building collapses, or stampedes at aid sites.
  • Thousands more have been injured, often with life-altering wounds, burns, or amputations.
  • Gaza is facing famine-like conditions.
  • Children are eating grass, leaves, or going days without food.
  • Severe malnutrition is widespread, especially in northern Gaza. Babies and toddlers are dying of hunger-related causes.
  • Nearly all children in Gaza are now considered to have signs of acute psychological trauma:
  • Nightmares
  • Bedwetting
  • Non-responsiveness (shutdown/dissociation)
  • Panic at loud sounds
  • Many have lost one or both parents, siblings, or entire families.
  • Most hospitals have been bombed or shut down.
  • Children can’t access basic care, vaccines, or treatment for chronic illnesses.
  • Wounded kids are operated on without anesthesia in some cases.
  • Over 1 million children have been displaced—many multiple times.
  • Families sleep in tents, rubble, or outdoors with no clean water or toilets.
  • Nearly all schools have been shut down, destroyed, or turned into shelters.
  • Many teachers and schoolchildren have been killed.
  • A whole generation risks growing up with no access to education or safety.
  • Children are drinking dirty water, leading to diarrheal diseases and infections.
  • Outbreaks of hepatitis, lice, and scabies are widespread.
  • Even in declared “safe zones” or aid areas, children have been shot, suffocated in stampedes, or killed by nearby strikes.
  • Some have died while queuing for water or food.

“There is no safe place left for children in Gaza. They are being killed, starved, maimed, and psychologically shattered. This is not a humanitarian crisis—this is a crisis of humanity.”
— Save the Children, July 2025

OP posts:
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41
Martymcfly24 · 21/07/2025 18:46

Agree @Everexpanding it chills me how much so many posters can use mental gymnastics to the justification of the slaughter of innocent children.

To dismiss a doctor's opinion but quote an x account. ( And by the way doctors on the ground have said the same thing)
To look for videos of the IDF shooting children but criticise Palestinians for filming their suffering and calling it propaganda.
To use the word "Pallywood" a vile concept.

On a thread with the title
27 children have been murdered by the IDF every day for 650 days in Gaza (UNICEF)

quantumbutterfly · 21/07/2025 18:56

businessflop25 · 21/07/2025 17:54

@EasyTouchyou are looking at this from the privileged position of having grown up in freedom and safety. These people haven’t had that chance. They are damaged broken individuals who are the product of the conditions they have been born to.
How do you grow up a well rounded human being with the ability to empathise when you’re born into what has fundamentally been a prison camp? How do you understand how to love when your family are continually imprisoned, killed or just disappear? Hamas is the product of what the west and Israel have done. And all that is happening just now is more on repeat. Because you can be damned sure that even if you obliterate Hamas now, in 10 -20 years from now another group will spring up probably named something different but born out of the same conditions and trauma.

Your expectations of them to be able to empathise or see things from any side other than their own is illogical. They can’t and won’t. The only way to change things is to give these people something to believe in and confidence that they will not be disappointed. But expecting Hamas to lay down their lives for others is just simply not going to happen

I don't subscribe to the narrative that this is what the west or even Israel have done, if you look in many other places in the middle east you will see the same issues. Syria, Libya, Sudan, Yemen https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/06/26/yemen-houthis-disappear-dozens-un-civil-society-staff Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran.

Hells bells, the west is controlling the rest of the world but seems to be doing a terrible job with it's own countries. I think you have to subscribe them some agency themselves, you seem to find it easy to do that to Israelis.

Not sure why kids on the streets of London were cheering on the houthis, I thought they like the UN.

The UN special envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, meets with local officials in Taizz, Yemen, February 12, 2024.

Yemen: Houthis Disappear Dozens of UN, Civil Society Staff

Houthi security forces have since May 31, 2024 arrested and forcibly disappeared dozens of people, including at least 13 United Nations staff and many employees of nongovernmental organizations operating in Houthi-controlled territories.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/06/26/yemen-houthis-disappear-dozens-un-civil-society-staff

Anonimummy · 21/07/2025 19:02

Martymcfly24 · 21/07/2025 18:46

Agree @Everexpanding it chills me how much so many posters can use mental gymnastics to the justification of the slaughter of innocent children.

To dismiss a doctor's opinion but quote an x account. ( And by the way doctors on the ground have said the same thing)
To look for videos of the IDF shooting children but criticise Palestinians for filming their suffering and calling it propaganda.
To use the word "Pallywood" a vile concept.

On a thread with the title
27 children have been murdered by the IDF every day for 650 days in Gaza (UNICEF)

Edited

Why is your issue with asking for evidence of what you are stating as facts?

Even the media usually report as ‘Hamas says’ .

There have been tonnes of accusations on here of the IDF deliberately targeting children taken as facts.

Why can’t you back them up?

‘Pallywood’ was known about long before this current conflict.

What would you term videos very obviously staged pretending to show Palestinians being killed and injured (where they move and get up afterwards) as ?

Are you saying these videos don’t exist when they clearly do with the same identified Palestinians in them over and over.

Why do you think they do that?

EasyTouch · 21/07/2025 19:31

This reply has been deleted

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Stripes56 · 21/07/2025 19:40

OMG
The first video is horrific - imagine how hungry and desperate for food you would need to be to run for food like that. It’s so undignified and shameful infact not having a fit for purpose aid system.
No wonder other NGOs have wanted nothing to do with it.
@Anonimummy
Given the discussion on statistical sampling - one video is not where the IDF do not do warning shots or shot people is not representative. Even the IDF have said that this has happened.

Changerj · 21/07/2025 19:43

I can’t watch anymore.

Stripes56 · 21/07/2025 19:47

@Anonimummy
Baby formula on the back of lorries mean nothing if it’s not getting into Gaza and to the babies who need it.
Here is a Times of Israel article expressing concerns from NGOs expressing concern about baby formula reaching babies, lack of clean water to prepare it (Israel has bombed water sanitation plants) and malnutrition.

Just goes to show - we need NGOs that know what they are doing!

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-said-hampering-entry-of-baby-formula-into-gaza-as-child-malnutrition-climbs/amp/

Stripes56 · 21/07/2025 20:02

Twiglets1 · 21/07/2025 09:58

I don’t believe children are deliberately targeted by the IDF. I appreciate that some people do think that and they are entitled to their opinion but I don’t share that opinion. I believe the IDF are hitting civilian areas because Hamas are hiding there & if Hamas didn’t have a strategy of hiding amongst civilians then the IDF would not be hitting those areas.

And it’s a strange interpretation that “innocent victims of the war” implies “collateral damage” - they have completely different meanings. Like I said before you seem determined to demonise me just because I disagree with you. You can deny it but everyone can see the way you have twisted my words to suggest a worse meaning than what I actually said.

I also don’t think they were deliberately targeted on a systemic level - but there has been decisions taken that inevitably have knowingly led to the death of thousands of children!

Like the decision to significantly loosen the number of people that can be allowed to die to target one individual target in this conflict, the use of dumb bombs in urban areas, the use of war heads with shrapnel in them, not checking if areas have been evacuated (think recent medical family killed, recent strike on church - surely IDF check somehow?). Then there are indirect deaths due to lack of adequate food, formula, water, immunisation program etc.

Then there have been reports of children being shot at in WB and those babies being left to die in incubators! Those may be isolated but very concerning.

Beachtastic · 21/07/2025 20:04

there has been decisions taken that inevitably have knowingly led to the death of thousands of children!

Yes, sadly. But no one seems interested unless it was "Israel's fault"? Nothing to do with their own elected government?

Stripes56 · 21/07/2025 20:05

Beachtastic · 21/07/2025 20:04

there has been decisions taken that inevitably have knowingly led to the death of thousands of children!

Yes, sadly. But no one seems interested unless it was "Israel's fault"? Nothing to do with their own elected government?

Agree totally
And now what about the rest of my posy on Israeli decisions have also contributed?

EasyTouch · 21/07/2025 20:06

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Crystalight · 21/07/2025 20:06

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Can I just say that Belgians are actually ashamed of their history in terms of Leopold’s behaviour. Do you really think this justifies what is happening now?

Beachtastic · 21/07/2025 20:19

Stripes56 · 21/07/2025 20:05

Agree totally
And now what about the rest of my posy on Israeli decisions have also contributed?

Edited

I don't argue with that!

I just get a bit nervous of the social-worker "ah, poor dears" approach to Hamas. I think it's actually quite hard for Western minds to compute just how ferociously malignant they are. We try to dress it up in terms we can understand, and it doesn't work because it is centuries since e.g. Christianity shared that expansionist "the world is ours" viewpoint and we now live in a mostly secular society, in a country that is (despite Tommy Robinson's best efforts) known for its liberal tolerance.

The only reason I post on these forums is my anxiety about the very obvious rise in antisemitism in the UK and the way people seem so easily manipulated by poorly disguised Hamas propaganda (that is not, obviously, to say that I deny something truly horrible is happening). This is a Middle Eastern war, with unfathomable depths of grievance and hatred (not to mention brutality). Even if we had access to military intelligence, I suspect it would be hard to unpick what's going on, so in the meantime forums like this are just a sort of entertainment, like children playing theatre with goodie/baddie puppets.

I was born shortly after WW2 ended and doubt I will live long enough to see how this one goes down in history over the decades to come, but I'm pretty sure that what currently passes for virtue signalling will turn out to be rather misplaced.

Crystalight · 21/07/2025 20:21

Anonimummy · 21/07/2025 19:02

Why is your issue with asking for evidence of what you are stating as facts?

Even the media usually report as ‘Hamas says’ .

There have been tonnes of accusations on here of the IDF deliberately targeting children taken as facts.

Why can’t you back them up?

‘Pallywood’ was known about long before this current conflict.

What would you term videos very obviously staged pretending to show Palestinians being killed and injured (where they move and get up afterwards) as ?

Are you saying these videos don’t exist when they clearly do with the same identified Palestinians in them over and over.

Why do you think they do that?

Are eye witness accounts by western doctors who have been allowed into Gaza not reliable?

Clavinova · 21/07/2025 20:44

Everexpanding · 21/07/2025 16:24

Doctor describing Israeli drones targetting injured children

However, the doctor's evidence is confused/inconsistent.

He describes sniper drones or quadcopters (something he hasn't seen himself) hovering above civilians/children and firing 'small cuboid pellets' - which he says he has retrieved from some of his injured patients. However, these distinctive cuboid pellets are fragmentations from larger missiles/shells, which disperse up to 20 metres away when the shells explode. This is obviously inconsistent with his descriptions of sniper drones 'coming in and shooting/picking off civilians' as the cuboid fragmentations disperse randomly.

Stripes56 · 21/07/2025 21:02

Beachtastic · 21/07/2025 20:19

I don't argue with that!

I just get a bit nervous of the social-worker "ah, poor dears" approach to Hamas. I think it's actually quite hard for Western minds to compute just how ferociously malignant they are. We try to dress it up in terms we can understand, and it doesn't work because it is centuries since e.g. Christianity shared that expansionist "the world is ours" viewpoint and we now live in a mostly secular society, in a country that is (despite Tommy Robinson's best efforts) known for its liberal tolerance.

The only reason I post on these forums is my anxiety about the very obvious rise in antisemitism in the UK and the way people seem so easily manipulated by poorly disguised Hamas propaganda (that is not, obviously, to say that I deny something truly horrible is happening). This is a Middle Eastern war, with unfathomable depths of grievance and hatred (not to mention brutality). Even if we had access to military intelligence, I suspect it would be hard to unpick what's going on, so in the meantime forums like this are just a sort of entertainment, like children playing theatre with goodie/baddie puppets.

I was born shortly after WW2 ended and doubt I will live long enough to see how this one goes down in history over the decades to come, but I'm pretty sure that what currently passes for virtue signalling will turn out to be rather misplaced.

I am sure that historians will be studying this period in depth.

However I disagree that people’s concerns are just virtue signalling. I do believe it influences politicians if they see depth of feeling.

A tragedy is unfolding in front of us and it already feels to late to leave it to historians to dissect it.

Crystalight · 21/07/2025 21:12

Stripes56 · 21/07/2025 21:02

I am sure that historians will be studying this period in depth.

However I disagree that people’s concerns are just virtue signalling. I do believe it influences politicians if they see depth of feeling.

A tragedy is unfolding in front of us and it already feels to late to leave it to historians to dissect it.

I agree with you. Jews in Europe were treated horrendously. What is awful is that Jews in the Middle East also paid the price for the Zionist project. I don’t think this history will be forgotten or rewritten.

Stripes56 · 21/07/2025 21:31

Clavinova · 21/07/2025 20:44

However, the doctor's evidence is confused/inconsistent.

He describes sniper drones or quadcopters (something he hasn't seen himself) hovering above civilians/children and firing 'small cuboid pellets' - which he says he has retrieved from some of his injured patients. However, these distinctive cuboid pellets are fragmentations from larger missiles/shells, which disperse up to 20 metres away when the shells explode. This is obviously inconsistent with his descriptions of sniper drones 'coming in and shooting/picking off civilians' as the cuboid fragmentations disperse randomly.

Could he be referring to shrapnel - like yourself?
There is concerns Israel has been using weapons with shrapnel sleeves - pretty horrific!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/11/israeli-weapons-shrapnel-children-gaza-injured

Israeli weapons packed with shrapnel causing devastating injuries to children in Gaza, doctors say

Surgeons who worked in European and al-Aqsa hospitals describe extensive wounds caused by ‘fragmentation’ shrapnel experts say is designed to maximize casualties

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/11/israeli-weapons-shrapnel-children-gaza-injured

YourOnMute · 21/07/2025 21:37

Beachtastic · 21/07/2025 17:44

Well, no one can tell - that's the point. Hamas do not dress as combatants. But sadly it is worth noting that Gazan civilian mobs enthusiastically participated in the orgy of sadism on 7 October, as well as in the jubilant celebrations that followed.

So you can't tell. You can't tell.
So, say Hamas did surrender. Say 1000 men tried to leave Gaza (apologies forgot that's impossible) and said we're Hamas, we're surrendering.
What guarantee does anybody have in Gaza that the IDF/Israeli state would accept that, or might they possibly claim that a lot more civilians are actually Hamas members, because you can't tell (don't dress as combatants/tunnels/civilians mobs etc) so nothing, the bombing, killing, doesn't stop.
Because Israeli leaders have stated they want Gaza empty.

Beachtastic · 21/07/2025 21:54

Stripes56 · 21/07/2025 21:02

I am sure that historians will be studying this period in depth.

However I disagree that people’s concerns are just virtue signalling. I do believe it influences politicians if they see depth of feeling.

A tragedy is unfolding in front of us and it already feels to late to leave it to historians to dissect it.

Sure. I just feel wary of the (understandable) depth of feeling being whipped up by social media, especially as you'd have to actually search the Dark Web to find out all the gory details about 7 October. Imagery is a powerful weapon of propaganda, and I don't think Westerners understand the Israeli reluctance to share the intimate details of their own suffering for our lesiure consumption.

On these forums, there are clearly identifiable themes of underdog/oppressor (largely shaped by somewhat racist views of "poor Palestinians", colonial guilt, and natural distrust of US global investment), without any acknowledgment of the obscene wealth funding Hamas from oil-rich countries that also want to see Israel eradicated. Plenty of "Oh, if only they were given half a chance, life would be so peaceful over there." No, it wouldn't. If only that were true, greater minds than ours would have solved this problem long ago.

We Europeans think we know all about fascism, because we've "been there, done that" so we think we know what it looks like: an angry white man spouting racism. I fear there's another form of it rising now that our worldview cannot compute, as we're just not attuned to it.

I wish there was a solution that did not involve grotesque levels of human suffering, but imagining that there is seems to completely disregard what's at stake for Israel. Yes, they have met force with +++FORCE+++, but as Mosab Hassan Yousef keeps emphasising, this is a Middle Eastern war and doing it any other way would be seen as weak (and surely he, as son of a Hamas founder, should know!).

Hamas are Israel's immediate close threat, but by no means the only one. In a conflict like this, I don't think you can measure "proportionality" in terms of numbers killed. It's been said before, but I do wonder how we would want our own government to respond if, say, the UK was surrounded by similar dangers - e.g. actively hostile paramilitary groups in Ireland, ongoing territorial disputes and no diplomatic relations with France, a peace treaty with Belgium but frequent public protests against the UK, a cold peace and border incidents with Spain, all of them funded distantly by (say) Russia and all of them threatening our annihilation... and against this background, an invasion where we were mutilated, sexually tortured, burned alive, etc and they all cheered and promised plenty more such visits.

What would make me feel safe in those circumstances? Probably nothing; and maybe Israel's response will turn out to make things worse for its own people in the long run (I hope not); but there don't seem to be any miracle answers, such as signing a peace agreement with terrorists who have taken such delight in showing what they're capable of.

YourOnMute · 21/07/2025 21:56

And let's not forget Hamas wouldn't be the organisation it is today if Netanyahu didn't decide to fund and support them, in opposition to the PLO.

Clavinova · 21/07/2025 22:08

Stripes56 · 21/07/2025 21:31

Could he be referring to shrapnel - like yourself?
There is concerns Israel has been using weapons with shrapnel sleeves - pretty horrific!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/11/israeli-weapons-shrapnel-children-gaza-injured

The cuboids are indeed ‘fragmentation’ shrapnel but that's not what the doctor was claiming at the parliamentary committee hearing;

The drones would come down and pick off civilians - children.
"We [were] operating on children who would say: 'I was lying on the ground after a bomb had dropped and this quadcopter came down and hovered over me and shot me.'
"The bullets that the drones fire are these small cuboid pellets...

Stripes56 · 21/07/2025 22:16

Beachtastic · 21/07/2025 21:54

Sure. I just feel wary of the (understandable) depth of feeling being whipped up by social media, especially as you'd have to actually search the Dark Web to find out all the gory details about 7 October. Imagery is a powerful weapon of propaganda, and I don't think Westerners understand the Israeli reluctance to share the intimate details of their own suffering for our lesiure consumption.

On these forums, there are clearly identifiable themes of underdog/oppressor (largely shaped by somewhat racist views of "poor Palestinians", colonial guilt, and natural distrust of US global investment), without any acknowledgment of the obscene wealth funding Hamas from oil-rich countries that also want to see Israel eradicated. Plenty of "Oh, if only they were given half a chance, life would be so peaceful over there." No, it wouldn't. If only that were true, greater minds than ours would have solved this problem long ago.

We Europeans think we know all about fascism, because we've "been there, done that" so we think we know what it looks like: an angry white man spouting racism. I fear there's another form of it rising now that our worldview cannot compute, as we're just not attuned to it.

I wish there was a solution that did not involve grotesque levels of human suffering, but imagining that there is seems to completely disregard what's at stake for Israel. Yes, they have met force with +++FORCE+++, but as Mosab Hassan Yousef keeps emphasising, this is a Middle Eastern war and doing it any other way would be seen as weak (and surely he, as son of a Hamas founder, should know!).

Hamas are Israel's immediate close threat, but by no means the only one. In a conflict like this, I don't think you can measure "proportionality" in terms of numbers killed. It's been said before, but I do wonder how we would want our own government to respond if, say, the UK was surrounded by similar dangers - e.g. actively hostile paramilitary groups in Ireland, ongoing territorial disputes and no diplomatic relations with France, a peace treaty with Belgium but frequent public protests against the UK, a cold peace and border incidents with Spain, all of them funded distantly by (say) Russia and all of them threatening our annihilation... and against this background, an invasion where we were mutilated, sexually tortured, burned alive, etc and they all cheered and promised plenty more such visits.

What would make me feel safe in those circumstances? Probably nothing; and maybe Israel's response will turn out to make things worse for its own people in the long run (I hope not); but there don't seem to be any miracle answers, such as signing a peace agreement with terrorists who have taken such delight in showing what they're capable of.

You have referred in both your posts to westerners not understanding the level of hatred here and that this is a Middle Eastern war and thus is how people make an impact.

I’m sorry, but that seems like an excuse. Human bodies and suffering are the same world over.

I don’t think clever men have actually given thought to offering a solution to make peace, but the U.S.’s starting position has been what does Israel want and see if we can make Palestinians agree.

In the backdrop of this, Israel has actively diminished the chance of peaceful outcome by continuing to develop settlements in the WB. Netanyahu has let vast amounts of money go into Gaza to sustain Hamas and prevent an alternative, potentially more unified with WB Palestinians and peaceful force develop. He thought he had Gaza sussed this way.

I am not saying this to be critical of Israel, but because I think diplomacy still has a chance - even after this, and is the only way that Israel is going to find peace in the region. I would like to see a homeland for Jewish people in the region, even through I don’t completely agree with how it was established

Otherwise - imagine what the future holds for the country!

Beachtastic · 21/07/2025 22:17

@YourOnMute and @Stripes56 , it is certainly all FUBAR 😞