Three years after the war began, children in Gaza have been denied a childhood. Every day, children affected by the war are living with the loss of family, home and school. Children should never pay the price of war.
Save the Children teams in Gaza are still reaching children with the help they need, and with your support we can reach even more.
Page last updated October 2026
Your generous donation could provide children and families affected by the war in Gaza, as well as other disasters across the world, with life-saving essentials like food, water and crucial mental health support. It can also help create lasting change through longer term programmes to alleviate poverty and the chronic impact of climate change.
Since the "ceasefire" agreement came into effect in October 2025, little has changed for many families. The agreement has not translated into meaningful protection for children, who continue living with fear and uncertainty as a constant part of daily life. Malnutrition rates in Gaza have dropped - but they haven't disappeared. Our clinics and partners are still diagnosing children under 5 with malnutrition, and we're continuing to see high rates of malnutrition among pregnant and breastfeeding women, especially in northern Gaza.
The killing and infliction of serious bodily and mental harm on children and their families, and the deliberate destruction of conditions essential to their survival and development, as we have witnessed across the occupied Palestinian territory, are in line with the UN Commission of Inquiry's findings of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Gaza Strip, and war crimes in the West Bank.
Children in Gaza are still terrified - terrified they may not find enough food or water, terrified for family members they've lost touch with, terrified the violence isn't really over. The “ceasefire" was a moment of hope, one that did not make children safe. Children in Gaza cannot afford another lost year. Palestinian children need a definitive ceasefire, access to education, healthcare, nutrition, protection services and safe spaces now. The longer critical support is delayed, the greater the long-term harm to children, families and communities will be. Children should never pay the price of war.
Behind these statistics are individual children with names, dreams and futures. They want to be teachers, doctors, astronauts - just like children everywhere.
We refuse to let this suffering be normalised. Aid must flow freely. Children must be protected.
Donate now to support our lifechanging work, in Gaza and around the world. Together we can be there for children when they need us most.
Shurouq*, 32, is a Save the Children staff member in Gaza. She lost her husband in the first weeks of the war. She and her 4-year-old daughter, Karmel*, have been displaced many times. One year into the ceasefire, this is what she told us:
" A year ago, we were told that the war had ended when the ceasefire was declared. But for us, it does not feel like the war has ended.”
She describes hearing bombs still. An attack in the neighborhood where she now live in with her daughter . Her daughter still getting frightened when the wind slams the door shut.
" To be honest, I am afraid too. I just try not to show it. I pretend that everything is normal because she needs to feel that it is.”
During a visit to one of Save the Children’s child-friendly spaces, she saw the joy these temporary learning and play areas bring to children whose schools have been destroyed or turned into shelters. At the same time, she reflected on the heartbreaking reality that children are now learning in tents after years of conflict.
She highlighted that, despite the efforts of humanitarian organisations, many needs remain unmet, particularly for children with disabilities who face inaccessible and unsafe environments. A year after the ceasefire, many child amputees are still waiting for prosthetics and medical care.
“A year has passed since the ceasefire. But my daughter is still fatherless. My home is still a pile of rubble. The city where I spent my entire life has become a place I barely recognize.”
Winter weather is impacting families living in tents in Gaza. Save the Children is distributing winter kits containing warm clothes, as well as hygiene kits with essential hygiene items to families.
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Why monthly donations are important
Now, more than ever, children in Gaza and around the world need your help.
Donations during this emergency have allowed us to act fast. But by giving monthly, you can help us be by a child's side within days, whenever disaster strikes.
Your monthly gift will mean that our teams can provide continuous support, offering vital food, healthcare and education to children in urgent need around the world. It also allows us to support children as they move out of survival mode and begin to start living again.
With a monthly donation, you can make a lasting impact on the lives of children in Gaza and around the world.
What the data says
Since October 2023:
More than 21,500 children have been killed
More than 1,022 Children under the age of one were killed
More than 520 babies were born and killed during the war
164 children died because of starvation
More than 58,800 of children lost one or both parents including 2,700 who lost both parents.
1,500 children amputated, making Gaza the location with the highest percentage of child amputees globally
Your donation will help vulnerable children in Gaza and around the world, wherever the need is greatest.
What's happening in Gaza
The suffering being inflicted on children in Gaza is unfathomable. Since the start of the war, more than 21,500 children have been killed. Many more perished from hunger and disease.
What we are witnessing is consistent with the findings of the UN Commission of Inquiry that the Government of Israel is committing a genocide.
Our staff in Gaza are telling us that the current situation is “going from bad to worse in Gaza”. Staff are living through air strikes and bombardment, Israeli encroachment to the west of the ‘yellow and orange lines’, and restrictions on the entry of essential aid and goods resulting in what little available in markets becoming more and more out of reach for most families in Gaza. Children and families’ lives remain in limbo.
Our health clinics report children too weak to cry, and in our child-friendly spaces, more and more children are expressing a wish to die. One child told us:
“I wish I was in heaven where my mother is. In heaven there is love, there is food, there is water.”
Behind these appalling stats are the stories of individual children. These children have names, dreams, and futures. They want to be teachers, doctors, astronauts - just like children everywhere.
But they are being starved by design. Since March, Save the Children has been blocked from delivering a single truck of aid. All available evidence indicates that starvation is being used as a weapon of war
We refuse to allow this suffering to be normalised. The so-called "ceasefire" agreement in October 2025 raised hopes, but children are still being killed, injured and denied what they need. The situation remains critical. Aid must flow freely. Children must be protected.
What we're doing to help children
Our incredible supporters have not let the world forget Gaza’s children – giving what they can and speaking out for a ceasefire. With their support, Save the Children has been able to reach more than 2.3 million people in Gaza, including 1.1 million children, since the start of the war. Supporting families with clean water and cash assistance to help them survive, as well as healthcare clinics and mother and baby areas.
While operations in Gaza are becoming more challenging by the day, Save the Children remains committed to providing lifesaving aid to the children of Gaza. Working with local partner organisations, we are:
- Running two primary health care centres to provide maternal and newborn care and screening and treating children for acute malnutrition
- Carrying out water trucking so that families have safe water to drink
- Running child friendly spaces to ensure children have a safe space to play, receive psychosocial support and escape from the traumatic experiences they’re enduring
- Providing cash to families so they can buy food and any other essentials
Save the Children staff in Egypt prepare supplies for Gaza
With your support, we’ll be there for many more children, for as long as they need us, so they can start to recover and see beyond tomorrow.
Your donation will help vulnerable children wherever the need is greatest.
We're here for the long haul
We're ready to respond and scale up the moment safe access allows. We've got supplies positioned at the border, and our teams are prepared to deliver immediate lifesaving aid – food, water, medical care – as well as longer-term support like safe spaces and psychological support to help children on the long road to recovery.
We’ll set up temporary learning centres and safe spaces for children to play and be children again. We’ll provide individual and group counselling to children subjected to months of terrifying violence. And we stand ready to help rebuild Gaza’s shattered education system.
Today, the future for Gaza’s children hangs in the balance. It’s a moment of hope, but also one still filled with enourmous challenges.
No matter what, we’ll be there for Gaza’s children.
With your support, we’ll deliver lifesaving support for as long as it’s needed.
By donating, you can make sure Save the Children is exactly where we need to be to stand with children in crisis.
Your donation will help vulnerable children wherever the need is greatest.
Meet Baby Lana
When Tima* found out she was pregnant in July 2023, she was excited to be having her second child and started to think about how she would spoil her new baby.
Then in October 2023, the war in Gaza started and everything changed. Tima and her family were displaced multiple times as fighting expanded across the Gaza strip. They now live in a tent in central Gaza.
Tima was very worried about where she would give birth safely, given the continuous attacks on healthcare facilities during the war.
Save the Children’s Emergency Health Unit have set up a maternity unit in the Gaza Strip. Baby Lana* arrived on 26 April 2024 and was the first baby to be born at the new maternity unit.
Although baby Lana was healthy when she left the hospital, after three days she became unwell. Tima was quick to bring her daughter back to the hospital where she was admitted. Lana had contracted sepsis due to the tough living conditions, including very limited access to clean water and washing facilities.
If left untreated, sepsis can easily kill a baby. However, thanks to Tima’s quick actions, a course of antibiotics and close monitoring in the inpatient facility, baby Lana has made a full recovery.
*Names changed to protect their identity
