Protecting children and young people is an urgent international responsibility.
The current escalation of the conflict between Israel and Palestine represents a matter of growing concern, and this Working Group wishes to express its condemnation of all manifestations of violence, intolerance, and, in particular, genocidal practices involving murder, torture, and forced displacement of the civilian population.
The ongoing policy of occupation and annexation of Palestinian territory by the State of Israel, the construction and expansion of settlements, and the promotion of colonization practices, including the forced displacement of civilians and the blockade of the Gaza Strip, has been a daily reality for over 13 years. Recent events have had a devastating impact on children and young people, with a growing number of children killed and wounded as a result of the constant bombing of civilians. According to reports from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, more than 3.400 Palestinian children have been killed since October 7, representing more than half of the total number of deaths. They are also affected by forced displacement, the destruction of their homes, and the disruption of electricity grids, water treatment plants, hospitals, and neonatal care units, which exacerbates the already dire situation of food shortages, lack of clean water, medical care, and safe shelter.
The brutal attack committed by Hamas, which caused hundreds of civilian deaths, many of them children and young people, and which we condemn, cannot be thought of outside of a history that, in recent decades, has been marked by increasing aggression by the State of Israel and its government against the Palestinian population.
For example, UNICEF points out that even before the reprehensible attacks on the Israeli population on October 7, children in the West Bank were facing the highest level of conflict-related violence in the last two decades, with 47 children killed between January and September of this year (41 Palestinian and 6 Israeli).
The Israeli state's airstrikes and military operations in the Palestinian territories, targeting homes, hospitals, and schools, along with the blockade of food and medical supplies to Gaza, violate international humanitarian law and constitute war crimes with an enormous human cost for children and young people. Furthermore, with these massacres, the Israeli government disregards numerous calls and resolutions from various United Nations bodies and is creating a humanitarian catastrophe that we must urgently halt. The elimination of future generations constitutes genocide against the Palestinian people.
In light of this situation, the CLACSO Working Group on Children and Youth joins the voices around the world calling for an immediate ceasefire, an end to forced displacement, guaranteed safe access to humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip with priority given to children, protection of civilian facilities (especially hospitals, schools, and shelters), the release of children and young people held hostage by Hamas, and an intellectual commitment to unraveling the root causes of these conflicts and wars and to finding a comprehensive, just, and lasting solution that guarantees the right of children and young people in both nations to live together in peace.
November 7th 2023
CLACSO Working Groups
Childhoods and youth
This text expresses the position of the Working Group on Childhood and Youth and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.
