Names of 710 Palestinian newborns killed by Israeli forces in Gaza published
The names of 710 Palestinian newborn babies killed by Israeli forces during the ongoing war on Gaza were released by the Palestinian health ministry on Monday.
They are among more than 16,700 Palestinian children killed in Israeli attacks since 7 October, according to the Gaza-based government media office.
The Palestinian health ministry has recorded 41,226 Palestinian deaths in total as a result of Israeli attacks since the war began.
It previously published the names of nearly half of them and said it was completing the collection of personal data for the rest before releasing their names.
The list published on Monday included the names of 34,344 people who were killed up to 31 August, as the process to collect data for nearly 7,000 more people continues.
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Among them were 11,355 children, 6,297 women, 2,955 elderly and 13,737 men.
A total of 710 people were aged zero on the list, meaning they were under the age of one when they were killed.
The majority of them were born and killed during the war.
Last month, newborn twins were killed in an Israeli air strike as their father was on his way to register their birth at the hospital.
The twins, a boy and a girl, were just three days old when they were struck.
They were killed alongside their mother and grandmother in the attack.
Muhammad Abu al-Qumsan, their father, told Middle East Eye he had just left Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, when he received a call telling him to return to the hospital.
"I tried to get in the car and came back right away and found them in the refrigerators, martyred,” Qumsan, 33, told MEE.
"Five minutes after getting the birth certificate, I was getting their death certificates.”
Since the early days of the war, international bodies and human rights groups repeatedly raised alarm over the high death toll among Palestinian children and urged Israel to avoid targeting civilians.
Weeks after the Israeli bombing campaign began, James Elder, spokesperson for the UN children's agency, Unicef, warned that Gaza had become a “graveyard for children”.
“Our gravest fears about the reported numbers of children killed becoming dozens, then hundreds, and ultimately thousands were realised in just a fortnight,” Elder said on 31 October.
“The numbers are appalling… Gaza has become a graveyard for thousands of children. It’s a living hell for everyone else.”
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