AFP, Geneva

The ceasefire declared in Gaza more than eight months ago is a “deadly illusion”, the UN charged yesterday, with 265 children killed there since the fighting was supposed to have stopped.

Despite a ceasefire being declared in October 2025, Israel has continued to launch strikes across Gaza, killing at least 992 Palestinians since then, according to the occupied territory’s health ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.

The UN children’s agency said the number of Palestinian children killed since the ceasefire was announced between Israel and Hamas, which runs Gaza, was an “absurd and devastating figure”.

“During a period supposedly defined by restraint and protection, a child has been killed, on average, every single day for more than eight months,” Unicef spokesman James Elder told reporters in Geneva, speaking from Amman.

In addition to those killed, more than 400 children had been injured since the ceasefire was declared, “many with catastrophic wounds”, Elder said.

“For many, many months, the world has been told there is a ceasefire in Gaza. Yet for Palestinian children, this so-called ceasefire has become a cruel and a deadly illusion.”

Elder stressed that the children killed since the ceasefire was declared “were not killed in a war zone”.

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