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“They were killed in their homes. In their schools. Playing football. Fishing. They were shot, bombed struck by quadcopters,” he said.

“If a child is being killed every day, surely the debate is no longer about the quality of the ceasefire. It is about the credibility of calling it one.”

This week, he pointed out, “a two-year-old boy was shot and killed by Israeli forces; a 13-year-old boy was shot and killed inside his tent; a five-year-old boy and his father were killed by an Israeli strike, and on and on it goes”.

Currently, he said, “hundreds of children urgently require medical evacuation”, even as Israeli “restrictions on essential medicines mean wounded children are enduring greater pain and face an increased risk of infection, complications and further amputations”.

Elder also highlighted the deep trauma suffered by Gaza’s children.

“Fear, loss and violence... is woven into the very fabric of their childhood,” he said, pointing out that “the trauma is so profound that it affects children’s ability to eat, sleep and, of course, to develop normally”.

Elder insisted: “The continued killing of children is not the consequence of a lack of options. It is the consequence of a lack of political will.”

“We must stop accepting levels of child deaths that would provoke international outrage anywhere else in the world,” he said.