'Children lying on the floor with limbs missing' in Gaza: UNICEF
As fighting between Israel and Hamas resumes, Israel's "relentless bombardment" in Gaza on Friday has been "utterly terrifying" -- and has had an immediate impact “on the faces of children," UNICEF spokesperson James Elder told ABC News.
"I feel I was starting to see childhood return when you chat to them -- that’s been replaced by fear again," Elder said. "There’s a trauma which returns very quickly."
![](https://i.abcnewsfe.com/a/cd9cb544-55d1-4e75-9b55-ac9f90324517/israel-gaza-10-ap-231130_1701358734954_hpMain.jpg)
Elder described seeing "children lying on the floor with limbs missing." He said some children who had already been injured were being moved around hospitals to make room for other casualties to come in.
He said sanitation "has broken down" and Gaza’s hospitals are now "on life support."
“Disease threatens just as many children" as the bombings, he said.
![PHOTO: Palestinian vendors sell their products in an open-air market near the ruins of houses and buildings amid a temporary truce between Hamas and Israel, in Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip Nov. 30, 2023.](https://i.abcnewsfe.com/a/55c7074a-c3f6-47b9-93b4-703c9d83dad8/israel-gaza-8-rt-231130_1701357947493_hpMain.jpg)
Over the last seven days, aid has been reaching Gaza, he said, but, "seven days was never ever enough.”
Elder said he’s "terrified" that if the fighting continues for even another couple of weeks, “many, many more thousands of people" could be killed.
-ABC News' Tom Soufi Burridge, Zoe Magee, Angus Hines and Nicky De Blois