Gazans orphaned by Israel's war with Hamas long for lost childhoods

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Jerusalem — Indirect peace talks between Israel and Hamas aimed at ending the war in Gaza and freeing the remaining Israeli hostages resumed Wednesday in Egypt. President Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner were expected to arrive in Egypt on Wednesday to join the conversations, a source familiar with the matter told CBS News.

The war was sparked by the Hamas-led, Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack, in which around 1,200 people were killed and 251 others taken as hostages. Israeli officials believe 48 of those people remain captive, though only 20 are believed to still be alive.

Since that day, the Gaza Strip's Hamas-run Ministry of Health says Israel's retaliatory war has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians. Israel disputes that figure but provides no estimate of its own, and the United Nations considers the health ministry's count the most reliable information available, as Israel has barred foreign journalists from operating independently in Gaza.

Ricardo Pires, a spokesman for the United Nations children's charity UNICEF, said this week that what he calls Israel's "disproportionate response" in Gaza has killed or maimed at least 61,000 children since the war started.

UNICEF and the global charity Save the Children, which cited data compiled by the Hamas-run Gaza Government Media Office, say that on average, a child dies every hour in Gaza — or "a classroom of children" per day, as UNICEF put it.

Bodies brought to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital after Israeli attack in Gaza

Since the war started, Save the Children says at least 20,000 kids have been killed in total – amounting to nearly a third of all Palestinians believed to have died in the war.

UNICEF spokesman James Elder, told CBS News that when he visited one of Gaza's beleaguered hospitals this week, "the first thing I saw was four children who had all been shot by quadcopters [military drones], then I went into a hallway and it was wall-to-wall children across all the corridors."

"There was a boy bleeding out on the floor who had apparently been there for five hours, then he was put on a stretcher only for another child to be put in his place," Elder told CBS News. "Then I watched a little girl die. That's half an hour here in Gaza."

The staggering death toll does not reflect the thousands more children who have been maimed and injured, or those who have lost one or both parents during the war.

At a makeshift camp for Palestinian orphans in the southern city of Khan Younis, CBS News' team in Gaza saw some of the young faces behind the grim statistics.

"I wish the war were just a dream I'd wake up from and see my parents next to me," said 14-year-old Deena Al-Za'arab, who lost both of her parents.

"I have to keep it together for the sake of my siblings," she added, "because now I must raise them."

Many of the children at the camp now spend their days doing the work of adults.

Arat Awqal, who is just 10, promised her father she'd be a doctor before he died, but she now focuses on taking care of her younger sister.

"I just want to go back to how it used to be," she told CBS News. "Whenever we heard the sound of missiles my father would hold us, but now he's gone, and we are always scared."

UNICEF says one in five children in Gaza is acutely malnourished, and Elder stressed that the trauma being inflicted on the youngest is not just physical.

"The kids not only lost loved ones — it's not just about just having your mother killed, it's about watching your mother die, then add that level of trauma to being displaced — and we talk of displacement, it sounds like a neutral or abstract term. It's not. It's violent. It's repetitious, and it also increases trauma."

The U.N. estimates that about 90% of Gaza's population, some 1.9 million people, have been forcibly displaced during the war, many of them multiple times.

"I feel such pain in my heart after losing my dad," said 12-year-old Gazal Basam at the camp for orphans. "I want to live like I did before the war, but I know life will never be the same again."

Agnes Reau and Tucker Reals contributed to this report.

Debora Patta

Debora Patta is a CBS News senior foreign correspondent based in Johannesburg. Since joining CBS News in 2013, she has reported on major stories across Africa, the Middle East and Europe. Edward R. Murrow and Scripps Howard awards are among the many accolades Patta has received for her work.

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