Death, displacement and military service: children in crisis from war in the Middle East

Millions of children in the Middle East are facing devastating consequences from war, including death, displacement and disruption of education. The ongoing violence has severely affected their lives and well-being, leaving profound physical and psychological consequences. The situation is worsening as conflicts spread across the region.

Millions of children are in crisis due to war in the Middle East, with reports of children involved in fighting in Iran, mass forced displacement in Lebanon and the killing of hundreds of minors.

According to the UN children's agency, UNICEF, more than 340 children have been killed and thousands more injured since the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran, while the latter has responded with bombings across the region.

The event with the highest number of child casualties occurred on the first day of the war, when a US missile attack on a school in Iran killed at least 160 children and teachers.

Israeli attacks on Lebanon - as well as ongoing attacks on the West Bank and Gaza - have added to the bloodshed. Across the region, over 1.2 million children have been displaced.

"Children in the region are facing horrific violence, while the very systems and services that are supposed to protect them are under attack," said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.

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Forced displacement in Lebanon

More than 1.1 million people, including some 400.000 children, have been forced from their homes by Israeli shelling and evacuation orders in Lebanon, according to a UNICEF estimate. Almost 90% of them are living outside shelters, many sleeping rough.

Nidal Ahmed, 52, and two of his children live in a tent in a makeshift camp with hundreds of other families in Biel, a neighborhood known for Beirut's nightlife. This is Ahmed's second displacement - his home in Tyre was destroyed by an airstrike on the second day of the war between Israel and Hezbollah, while his brother's house in the southern suburbs of Beirut was ordered to be vacated days after he took shelter there.

“It’s 5pm and we haven’t eaten anything today,” Ahmed said, as his eight-month-old daughter, Zahraa, sat in front of him in dirty clothes. “We could only give the children tea and some bread. It’s not appropriate for such a small child to eat bread, but what can we do?” he said, pointing to a few pieces of dry bread that the girl was chewing.

After a month in displacement, Ahmed has run out of money to feed his children. He relies on local organizations that come by occasionally and distribute a meal most days, but not always.

The conditions they live in are "degrading," he said, pointing to the tent built with a blue plastic sheeting placed over a wooden frame and secured with stones. "I tried to cover it to protect us from the rain, but every morning we wake up with wet mattresses,"

As his three-year-old son, Ahmad, plays with another child in an empty lot, he says he only showers once a week, on Fridays, when his father takes them for 30 minutes to a friend's house to use the bathroom. For other needs, there is only one toilet for hundreds of families, where people wait in line for up to half an hour, and there is no running water.

UNICEF Representative in Lebanon, Marcoluigi Corsi, warned that the displacement will have long-term consequences for children. “This relentless cycle of bombing and displacement is exacerbating psychological wounds, creating deep fear and risking major long-term emotional damage,” he said.

Ahmed says he already sees these effects in his children. When Israeli jets break the sound barrier or bomb Beirut, his son starts running, trying to hide from a bomb he thinks is about to fall on him.

Ahmed himself is exhausted. He was forced to leave his wife and 17-year-old daughter in a hospital in Tyre after they were injured in the bombing of their home. He shows a photo of his wife lying in a coma in a hospital bed, detailing her injuries: a skull fractured in 33 places, internal bleeding and spinal cord injuries.

"They tell me he won't survive," Ahmed said, looking at his children. "They're busy playing now. But when they come back and don't find their mother, it will be a disaster."

Death, injury and mourning in Palestine

Despite a ceasefire now more than five months old, health officials in Gaza say at least 50 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since the conflict with Iran began more than a month ago. The number of children killed remains unclear, but on March 29, Israeli airstrikes on checkpoints killed at least six Palestinians, including a girl, according to local rescue services.

The Gaza Strip has yet to recover from 23 months of Israeli bombardment, which has killed tens of thousands of people and destroyed hospitals and schools in what a UN investigation has described as genocide. As of October last year, an average of at least one Palestinian child was being killed every hour. The number of children killed by Israeli forces in the war in Gaza exceeded 20.000 by the end of last year, according to Save the Children.

Although the war with Iran did not open a new front in Gaza, it has deepened insecurity and brought an intensification of Israeli military operations that were already underway.

Closures and restrictions on movement in Gaza, caused by the escalation of the conflict, have cut off access to basic services and forced the closure of some schools. Crossings into Gaza were closed in the early days of the war, blocking humanitarian aid and commercial goods.

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli settlers and security forces have stepped up violence against Palestinians since the start of the war with Iran, killing at least three children. On March 15, Israeli police shot dead two young Palestinian brothers and their parents in Tamoun, opening fire on the family's car as they returned from a Ramadan bazaar.

Mohammed, five, and Othman, seven — who was blind and had special needs — were killed along with their mother, Waad Bani Odeh, 35, and father, Ali Bani Odeh, 37. Two other brothers survived. Khaled, 11, later said he heard his mother crying and his father praying before they died. After the shooting, he said Israeli border police forcibly removed him from the wrecked car, taunted him and beat him. One officer told him, “We killed dogs,” according to Khaled’s testimony.

In Israel, at least four children have been killed by Iranian retaliatory missiles. One of the most severe attacks occurred on March 1, when an Iranian missile hit the central Israeli city of Beit Shemesh.

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Children as young as 12 guard checkpoints in Iran

Reports that children as young as 12 are being used by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to guard checkpoints have raised serious concerns about the use of children in conflict.

The Human Rights Watch organization published a report in late March stating that the IRGC is conducting a campaign to recruit children as "volunteer fighters for the defense of the homeland."

On March 26, an IRGC official in Tehran stated that a campaign to mobilize civilians, called "Fighters for the Defense of the Homeland for Iran," had set the minimum age at 12.

The poster for this campaign features a boy and a girl alongside two adults, including a man in military uniform.

Human Rights Watch, based in New York, stressed that the military recruitment and use of children constitutes a serious violation of children's rights and is considered a war crime when it involves children under 15 years of age.

"There is no justification for a military recruitment campaign targeting children, let alone 12-year-olds. This shows that the Iranian authorities are willing to risk the lives of children to augment their manpower," said Bill Van Esveld, associate director for children's rights at the organization.

An 11-year-old Iranian boy was reportedly killed in an Israeli airstrike while at a security checkpoint. His mother, Sadaf Monfared, told the Hamshahri newspaper that he had been assisting patrols and checkpoints run by the Basij, a volunteer militia under the command of the IRGC.

Van Esveld added: "Officials involved in this reprehensible policy are exposing children to the risk of serious and irreversible harm, as well as themselves to criminal liability. Senior leaders who do not stop this cannot claim to care about Iran's children."

Attacks on schools and the loss of education

The US bombing of an elementary school in Minab on February 28 killed dozens of people, most of them girls aged 7 to 12. The attack is the worst mass killing so far in the US-Israeli war against Iran and has been described by UNESCO as a “grave violation” of international law.

Relentless attacks across the region are destroying and damaging facilities and infrastructure on which children depend, including hospitals, schools, and water and sanitation systems.

The Iranian Red Crescent Society said 316 medical centers and 763 schools have been severely damaged or destroyed by US-backed Israeli attacks.

These attacks, as well as general violence, have paralyzed education. Save the Children said at least 52 million school-age children across the region have had their education disrupted, moving to online learning or missing out on education altogether.

Of the 669 collective shelters in Lebanon, 364 are public schools, according to UNICEF. In Israel, schools have been continuously closed in large parts of the country.

Ahmad Alhendawi, regional director for the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe at Save the Children, said: “In any conflict, classrooms are often the first to close and the last to reopen. Every hour of learning lost deepens the wounds of war. Not every child can escape violence or cope with online learning; for the most vulnerable children, once they leave school, many never return.”

He added: "Schools are protected places and attacks on them may constitute serious violations of international humanitarian law. The laws of war must be respected."

Psychological impact

Bloodshed and unrest have exposed children to traumatic events. Prolonged exposure to violence and insecurity is known to have long-term consequences on brain development, emotional regulation, and overall mental health.

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Although there has been a near-total internet blackout in Iran, satellite television channels continue to broadcast. The London-based satellite channel Iran International has begun airing segments between newscasts with advice on how to deal with fear and anxiety in children.

"Every war is a war against children," Alhendawi said. "Children live in fear, caught in the crossfire of this adult war. Wars have rules, and children should be immune from any conflict."