17,000 children in Gaza are without a guardian

At least 17,000 children in the Gaza Strip are unaccompanied or separated from their families, according to estimates by UNICEF, the U.N. children’s fund.

UNICEF has described Gaza as the “most dangerous place in the world to be a child,” saying that Israel’s war against Hamas has turned the enclave into “a graveyard for thousands of children.” Amid a deepening humanitarian crisis and warnings about the imminent risk of famine, UNICEF has said that many children are malnourished and sick.

A spokesperson for the agency, Jonathan Crickx, said Friday that the number of unaccompanied children — “each one a heartbreaking story of loss and grief” — was an estimate, since the current security and humanitarian conditions made it nearly impossible to fully verify.

“Behind each of these statistics is a child who is coming to terms with this horrible new reality,” he added in a statement following a trip to Gaza.

In a conflict, members of an extended family often take in children who have been separated from their parents, including those who have been orphaned, he noted. But shortages of food, water and shelter in Gaza have made it so that the extended families of unaccompanied children are often “struggling to cater for their own children” and unable to care for another, he added.

Children account for about 40% of the 27,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, according to authorities in Gaza and international organizations.