A child given a single painkiller a day after her legs were blown off, a teen killed by tank fire while getting bread and 30 members of one family gone in a single strike highlight the dire situation in Gaza.
UNICEF global spokesman James Elder has called for an end of callous indifference to children suffering in the besieged strip after more than two years of war.
Mr Elder recounted harrowing examples of grievous atrocities from his six missions to Gaza in a speech at Canberra's National Press Club on Tuesday, and demanded more humanitarian aid and accountability for alleged war crimes in the region.
"What young Australians, Australian children are learning as they watch this unfold, they see that the rules of law, meant to protect civilians and children, seem to depend on who the child is or where the child is," he said.
"So this generation is being taught that fairness is optional, compassion is negotiable."
More than 40,000 children in Gaza had suffered injuries from the conflict since the war began in October 2023, according to Save the Children.
Mr Elder said it is hard to understand how "things in Gaza went on and on and on" after the horrors of the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 in which dozens of Israeli children were among those killed or abducted.
"Then the relentless attacks that followed in Gaza in those first weeks alone should have been enough for the world to say, stop, no more, but nothing stopped," he said.
"The level of repairing, psychologically and physically, requires that callous indifference to absolutely swap into fiscal support."
Mr Elder recalled witnessing a 13-year-old boy wounded by shrapnel from a tank shell as he went to buy bread for his family.
"I went back to see him in the same hospital a week (later), his mum again clutching his medical evacuation form as if it meant something," Mr Elder said.
The boy ultimately died of his wounds.
"The first time I met a child whose entire family had been killed was in November 2023, I'd never heard of such a thing, I never thought I'd see it again," Mr Elder said.
"I've now heard it so many times it's not remarkable."
Israel has been accused of genocide by international aid groups, renowned scholars and a UN inquiry due to the high number of civilian casualties, deliberate blockade on food, aid and medical supplies and complete destruction of the strip.
Its government vehemently denies the accusations.
More than 69,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel's counteroffensive, according to local health authorities.
It followed terror group Hamas' attack that killed 1200 people and resulted in 250 more taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
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