By Middle East Correspondent
LONDON, (The Muslim News): Israeli attacks on civilian infrastructure, mounting child casualties, mass displacement, and worsening prison conditions for Palestinian detainees have intensified international alarm over the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
On Monday, Israeli strikes reportedly destroyed a school run by Catholic nuns in Nabatieh, southern Lebanon, reducing the building to rubble. Local reports said the school was not being used for military purposes and served as a long-standing educational institution operated by religious sisters.
The attack came amid growing concern over the impact of Israeli military operations on children and civilian infrastructure across the region.
UNICEF: Palestinian children paying “intolerable price”
UNICEF warned Tuesday that at least 70 Palestinian children have been killed in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since the beginning of 2026, averaging roughly one child every week.
Speaking in Geneva, UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said 93% of those children were killed by Israeli forces, while more than 850 others had been injured, many by live ammunition.
“Children are paying an intolerable price for escalating militarised operations,” Elder said, warning that violence extended beyond direct attacks to the “steady dismantling” of systems children rely on, including schools, healthcare, water infrastructure, and housing.
UNICEF documented 99 education-related incidents this year alone, including school demolitions, killings, detentions, injuries, and restrictions preventing access to education.
“Schools, which should be places of safety and stability, are increasingly becoming sites of fear,” Elder said.
The agency also reported that more than 2,500 Palestinians, including 1,100 children, were displaced in the first four months of 2026, surpassing displacement figures recorded during all of 2025.
Meanwhile, UNICEF said 347 Palestinian children from the West Bank are currently being held in Israeli military detention, the highest figure in eight years, with more than half under administrative detention without formal charges.
“Their suffering cannot be normalized,” Elder added.
Palestinian population and displacement continue to rise
The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) said the global Palestinian population has reached approximately 15.5 million people, including 7.4 million living in historic Palestine.
Marking the 78th anniversary of the Nakba, the mass displacement accompanying Israel’s establishment in 1948 — the bureau said more than two million Palestinians are now internally displaced across Gaza and the occupied West Bank as a result of war and illegal settlement expansion.
According to the bureau, Israel’s military campaign has displaced nearly two million people in Gaza alone, with many forced to shelter in tents, schools, and overcrowded facilities.
The PCBS also reported that approximately 40,000 Palestinians have been displaced from refugee camps in the northern West Bank because of ongoing Israeli military operations.
Illegal settlement expansion has accelerated sharply. By the end of 2025, the number of Israeli settlements and military sites in the West Bank had reportedly reached 645, including settlement outposts and military bases.
Israeli settler numbers in the occupied territory now exceed 778,000, with nearly half concentrated in occupied East Jerusalem.
The bureau further documented more than 61,000 attacks by Israeli forces and settlers between 2022 and 2025, including the destruction of over 81,000 trees, many of them olive trees central to Palestinian agriculture and livelihood.
WHO warns of “life-changing injuries” in Gaza
The World Health Organization (WHO) said Tuesday that around 43,000 Palestinians injured in Gaza since October 2023 have sustained life-changing injuries, including approximately 10,000 children.
WHO representative Reinhilde Van de Weerdt told reporters that the figures reflected the long-term devastation inflicted on Gaza’s civilian population and healthcare system.
According to WHO data, injuries include more than 22,000 major limb injuries, over 5,000 amputations, 3,400 severe burns, and thousands of spinal cord and traumatic brain injuries.
More than 50,000 people now require long-term rehabilitation treatment.
However, Gaza’s rehabilitation system has effectively collapsed. WHO said no rehabilitation facility is currently fully operational, while hundreds of patients remain on waiting lists for specialised treatment beds.
Only 500 of 2,300 amputees assessed since late 2024 have received permanent prosthetic limbs because of severe shortages and restrictions on medical supplies entering Gaza.
“The people of Gaza have endured unimaginable suffering,” Van de Weerdt said. “They deserve not just emergency care, but the sustained support needed to recover and reclaim their lives.”
Palestinian doctors describe “catastrophic” prison conditions
Four Palestinian doctors detained in Israeli prisons have described conditions of starvation, untreated disease, and prolonged detention without charges.
The testimony emerged after lawyers from Physicians for Human Rights Israel visited the detainees at Negev Prison on May 11.
The doctors, Mohammed Obeid, Hussam Abu Safiya, Murad al-Qouqa, and Akram Abu Ouda, said food provided to prisoners was “dangerously insufficient,” while diseases such as scabies were spreading without adequate medical treatment.
The organisation said the doctors had repeatedly appeared before Israeli courts without formal charges or proper legal representation.
Among them is Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, Director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, who was arrested after Israeli forces raided and destroyed the hospital complex in December 2024.
The detainees described conditions inside the prison as “catastrophic from both humanitarian and health perspectives.”
US costs of regional war reach $29 billion
As the conflict continues to widen regionally, a Pentagon official told a House Appropriations subcommittee Tuesday that the United States has spent nearly $29 billion on the war with Iran since fighting began on February 29.
Defense Undersecretary Comptroller Jules Jay Hurst said the figure included operational expenses as well as the repair and replacement of military equipment.
Meanwhile, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said Israel had transferred Iron Dome missile defence batteries and personnel to the United Arab Emirates during the attacks on Iran.
Speaking in Tel Aviv, Huckabee praised the UAE as “the first Abraham Accord member” and cited the deployment as an example of growing military cooperation between Israel and Gulf states.
There was no immediate official response from Abu Dhabi regarding the claim.
[Photo: Palestinian Mahmoud Abdulrahman Hille searches for the remains of his relatives beneath the rubble of a destroyed building in Gaza City, Gaza, Palestine, on May 11, 2026. Hille lost 39 family members during an Israeli attack on December 21, 2023, and, with the help of civil defense teams and local residents using basic equipment, has recovered the remains of only two relatives after four days of searching. Photojournalist: Anas Zeyad Fteha/AA]
