Palestinian Children Speak Out on World Children’s Day
Khan Younis, Gaza, Palestine — With over 17,492 Palestinian children killed by Israel over the last year in Gaza, the Palestinian Children’s Council held a press conference in Khan Younis for World Children’s Day on November 20, 2024. Youth speakers in front of Nasser Hospital gave a rundown of Israeli atrocities during 411 days of genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.
World Children’s Day was established by the United Nations in 1954 to promote children’s rights and is celebrated on November 20 each year. In The UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child (PDF) in 1959 and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (PDF) in 1989. Both documents are meant to safeguard the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to set standard accomplishments in the field of human rights to ensure children’s well-being internationally.
Despite these fundamental human rights bestowed upon each child across the world, Lama Abu Leilah says that Palestinian children have “lost hope in something called human rights or children’s rights.”
Abu Leilah is the Deputy President of the Palestinian Children’s Council, which was established in 2021 and is supervised by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) in partnership with Save the Children.
Children from 12 to 17 years old represent the five Gaza Strip governorates that make up the voluntary council. PCHR notes that the Council aims to promote Palestinian children’s community participation in all their issues and shedding light on their situation in the Gaza Strip while improving it.
“We were displaced [from] our home in the hope of finding a safe place, but we discovered that there is no safe place in the Gaza Strip.”
Lama Abu Leilah, Deputy President, Palestinian Children’s Council
Children make up at least 47% of the population of Gaza and have been deprived of their fundamental rights while they face mass killings, injuries, diseases, starvation, forced displacement, and a lack of education and healthcare. Abu Leilah said their hopes can return at the end of hostilities.
Another Children’s Council member said, “We started our second year and we didn’t receive any education. So I say today, by my name, and in the name of all the children of Palestine, I call [the] international community and all free people of the world, please stop the war and provide all our rights [so we] can live a normal life with all the children of Palestine.”
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