Prepared by the Media and Communication Department at the Arab Network for Early Childhood

6 February 2025 

In a blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement between Lebanon and Israel, breaching humanitarian laws, charters, agreements, and treaties, Israel continues to bomb, kill, and systematically destroy residential units. It is blowing up entire villages and attempting to deprive families of their right to return to their homes by continuing to occupy some villages in the south, taking civilians as captive, and targeting returning families. This has led to the death of at least 24 martyrs and 140 wounded, including dozens of children, not to mention terrorizing children through drones and launching fake raids.

Since the ceasefire went into effect on 27/11/2024, the Israeli occupation army has committed no less than 700 violations, resulting in dozens of martyrs and wounded, including women and children. This comes just months after a devastating war that Israel expanded and where it committed genocides, ecocides, and urbicides. This attempt to dismantle the social fabric serving its military, political, and demographic goals constitutes a flagrant violation of the international humanitarian law. For these and other purposes, Israel directly targeted defenseless civilians, families, children, and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in shelters, infrastructure, agricultural lands, health facilities, ambulances, fire trucks, archaeological sites, places of worship, medical, relief, educational, and journalistic personnel, the Lebanese army, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), and UN staff. It also used white phosphorus and cluster bombs. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the population of 25% of Lebanese territory was subject to Israeli evacuation warnings. Amnesty International described these warnings as “misleading and inadequate”.

The war resulted in around 4,000 martyrs, with an average of three children per day, and 16,600 wounded, including a large number of women and children, and the displacement of about one and a half million people. We also must not ignore the crime against humanity committed by Israel by planting explosives inside pagers and walkie-talkies, which resulted in dozens of civilian martyrs and the maiming of hundreds, including children. Since before the war expanded, we, at ANECD with its headquarters in Beirut, have shed light on Israeli crimes against children and families and called for an immediate ceasefire. This came along the insufficient attention received by Lebanese children at various levels during and after the war. UNICEF described this inertia as “the silent normalization of terror”. We have continued to work in extremely difficult circumstances, even when our staff and their families have suffered displacement and lost their homes and loved ones. We will continue to do what we can to show the harsh conditions that children experience in our countries filled with crises and conflicts.

Current conditions and challenges

Whereas the truce extended until February 18 offers hope, the general situation remains fragile, and the humanitarian situation is still catastrophic, especially for children.

• There are thousands of wounded children, mothers, pregnant and lactating women, medical, relief and educational personnel.
• Due to the massive destruction and continued Israeli violations on one hand, and the slow pace of the reconstruction process on the other (with the damage survey continuing), hundreds of families are still in temporary and crowded shelters that lack the minimum necessities of life, and thousands of children are still far from their homes and villages.
• The current academic year has faced a stumbling and challenging start due to the education sector damage caused by Israeli attacks:
• Thousands of students are still deprived of access to their right to education on an equal basis, especially in the southern border villages, in light of:
• Dozens of destroyed or semi-destroyed schools.
• Continued Israeli occupation of a number of southern border villages and the Israeli threat preventing students from returning to schools that may be usable.
• Lack of a clear and organized plan for distance learning that ensures children’s access to their right to education on an equal basis and inappropriate conditions for educational staff.
• Months of the school year are lost for students and educational staff, and cases of academic delay, anxiety, and deep fear are documented among students.
• Thousands of parents are missing, and this has a horrific impact on children, families, and the recovery journey.
• Millions of tons of rubble will take months to remove.
• Hundreds of unexploded shells remain noting that they reached 60 by the date of the ceasefire according to the assessment of the “National Council for Scientific Research”.
• The crisis in the already suffering health and medical sectors has worsened, with hundreds of martyrs and wounded among the medical staff.
• Disruption of agricultural activity and destruction of a large proportion of agricultural land and crops, especially in southern Lebanon, is deepening food insecurity. A third of Lebanon’s population currently faces food insecurity according to the latest assessment by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Malnutrition remains a major risk in Lebanon, with three out of four children under the age of five following a low-diversity diet, making them vulnerable to stunting and wasting.
• The mental health crisis is worsening, with all children in war-torn areas in need of psychosocial support. According to UNICEF, all children in Lebanon show worrying signs of psychological, behavioral and physical distress, and fear of losing loved ones, the latter being usually associated with wars and conflicts.
• All these outbreaks come in the midst of a stifling economic crisis that Lebanon has been experiencing for years, compounding the challenges.

Accordingly, ANECD calls for the following:

• The mobilization of global political support at different levels to exert effective pressure towards:
• Retreat of the Israeli occupation army from the villages where it is still stationed, and preventing it from continuing to violate the ceasefire agreement.
• Consolidating the necessary efforts to adopt a unified approach to protecting children’s rights, away from double standards and political agendas and providing Lebanese children and their caregivers adequate attention, as is the case with other children.
• Securing coverage of the cost of the war initial direct losses that exceeded billions of US dollars.
• Accelerating the process of removing rubble and explosive remnants of war.
• Concerted efforts by local, regional, and international actors and institutions in the early childhood development sector towards:
• Formulating a multi-dimensional intervention plan that works on the short and long-term levels and focuses on laying the foundations for sustainable recovery of the children and their caregivers in Lebanon.
• Calling on stakeholders to join in order to mobilize resources that provide immediate relief, lifesaving assistance, in addition to ensuring early and long-term recovery for young children and caregivers.
• Provision of free and immediate temporary housing.
• Ensuring access to necessary healthcare for children, mothers, nursing mothers, and pregnant women, providing multi-dimensional health follow-up for the patients and the wounded, and providing hospitals with the necessary equipment.
• Meeting the adequate nutritional needs of young children, infants, pregnant women, and nursing mothers to prevent worsening the food security crisis.
• Supporting alternative care systems in Lebanon with thousands of children having lost their parents.
• Ensuring a safe return for young children to in-person education, compensating for the previous months, and simultaneously working to support distance learning plans and providing its necessary tools.
• Offering psychosocial support to all children and helping them to recover, especially orphans, the wounded, and those who have had their limbs amputated, in addition to providing psychological support to parents and caregivers.

According to UNICEF, the year 2024 was one of the worst years for children in Lebanon, and their rights were severely violated. The nightmare for children in Lebanon is not over yet. As they begin to rebuild their lives, we must stand by them to ensure they recover and regain their future, so that their current year and the years to come are not more disastrous