“The situation of the children in Israel in the first months of the war shows to a large extent that the state did not pass the test of protecting them,” the head of Israel's National Council for the Child, Vered Windman, said in her description of a report published on Sunday detailing the effects of the war in Gaza and the October 7 massacre on Israeli children.
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The report states that the children in Israel 2023 yearbook data "point to the tragic connection between the weakness of public systems and the state protection network for children on the eve of the massacre and the war, and the scope and depth of the consequences on the children's situation.
"Professional experience shows that the difficult data from the beginning of the war are probably only the beginning of the grim picture of a disaster that will only become clear at the end of the crisis. Only a complete overhaul of our thinking and an overall strategic shift in policies concerning children will be able to change the picture and save them and us as a society."
According to the data of the annual report of the National Council for the Child, which reviews the situation of children in Israel, 38 children were murdered on October 7, of which three were between the ages of birth and 3, and four between the ages of 3 and 6.
In addition, 42 children were abducted into the Gaza Strip by Hamas and other terrorist organizations, nine of them under the age of five. Forty of them were released during a temporary cease-fire in November, which classified a child as someone under the age of 19 who was not serving in the IDF. Two children, brothers Kfir and Ariel Bibas, 1 and 4 years old respectively, are held in captivity in Gaza.
The data also shows that a total of 19,407 children have suffered physical and mental injuries in hostilities since the outbreak of the war through February 28, with about 37% of them (or 7,257 children) under the age of 6.
Following the terrorist attack on October 7, 116 children were orphaned - 20 children were left without both parents and another 96 lost one parent.
Windman, the CEO of the National Council for the Child said at the release of the report that it is "giving voice to the cry of the children Ariel and Kfir Bibas who remain in Hamas captivity; of the 38 children who were murdered in the October 7 massacre; of the thousands of children who were displaced from their homes and of the 19,407 children who were injured and recognized by the National Insurance as victims of hostilities in body and soul, numbers that the mind cannot digest and the soul cannot bear.”
The report also refers to children who were evacuated from their homes following the war. "At the end of December 2023, approximately 48,000 school-age children lived in communities that were evacuated by government decision. Of these, approximately two-thirds are from the south of the country. Of the total number of children, 17,725 children are of preschool age (up to the age of 6)," according to the report.
"In addition, of course, there are many children in families who evacuated independently. Evacuated students are supposed to attend schools in the community, in schools opened outside the evacuation centers or within the evacuation centers, but at the end of December 2023, there was still no complete data regarding the placement of all the children. There are 7,900 students for which the Ministry of Education has no information about their whereabouts or their studies."
According to the report, during the war months, there was a significant increase in domestic violence against children. "Compared to the corresponding months last year, in the months of October-December 2023 there was an increase of about 28% in calls to the 118 hotline regarding violence, sexual abuse and neglect of children," it said.
"As part of this, in those months there was an increase of approximately 37% in calls to the 118 hotline concerning violence against children in the family (195 calls in the months of October-December 2022, compared to 268 calls in the corresponding months in 2023).
The report also noted that in the months of October-December 2023, the first three months of the war, there was a 28% decrease in the number of suicide attempts by children aged 0 to 17 compared to the number of cases in the same months in 2022 (215 compared to 298 cases). Of the suicide attempts in 2023, about 85% were suicide attempts by girls.
This is in contrast to the trend of the increase in the number of suicide attempts by children and teenagers who made it to an emergency room recorded between the years 2019 and 2022, by about 16% (from 925 attempts to 1,075). The number of attempts by girls increased by about 25% (from 702 to 881); and by girls aged 15 to 17 by about 30% (from 433 to 562; some 22 children up to the age of 9; 378 between the ages of 10 and 14; and 675 between the ages of 15 and 17 (in 2022). That is, 37% of the minors who tried to commit suicide during the year 2022 were under the age of 14. According to the report, between the years 2019 and 2022, there was an increase of approximately 19% in visits by children to the psychiatric departments for emergency medicine.
The report points to significant gaps in the response of the education system for students during the war. "As of August 2023, about 29% of educational psychologist positions in the education system were not filled (a total of 986 unfilled positions). In the South District, "about 36% of educational psychologist positions in schools were not filled," according to the report.
As for protection, the report states that "about 26% of the educational institutions in Israel, under the supervision of the Ministry of Education, are not protected as required (there is less protected space than required), and about 15% of the educational institutions are not protected at all. In the southern and northern districts, about 20% of the educational institutions are not protected as required and about 10% of them are not protected at all. In the schools in the Bedouin settlements in the Negev, about 21% are not protected at all."
According to Windman, "it should be said loudly and clearly, years of negative trends in poverty, in mental health and in the field of welfare and risk did not start on October 7. But when an emergency situation meets systems and public personnel that have been starved for years and a security network that is damaged, the result is already known in advance.
As every year, the report also looks at the risk situation of children and youth in Israel. In 2022, 873,000 children, which is 28.2% of the total number of children in Israel, lived in poverty. This rate is higher than the rate of poor children in 2020 (27.2%) and 2021 (28%).
In addition, in 2022, 15,646 police cases were opened for crimes against minors inside and outside the family (compared to 15,721 cases in 2019). Some 3,863 cases were opened for crimes in the family (about 25% of all cases) and 11,783 were opened for crimes outside the family (about 75% of all cases).
The number of cases opened for sexual offenses against minors in 2022 was the highest in the last decade: the number of cases opened in 2021-2022 increased by about 9% (from 2,604 cases in 2021 to 2,829 in 2022. In addition, between the years 2019 and 2022, there was an increase of about 75% in the number of cases opened for the offense of sexual harassment against minors (from 362 cases in 2019 to 633 in 2022).
"Since 2008, there has been a 3.6-fold increase in the number of cases opened for the offense of sexual harassment against minors out of the total number of cases opened for sexual offenses against them," says the National Council for the Child.
"These accounted for approximately 22% of all cases opened for sexual offenses against minors in 2022 (compared to approximately 6% in 2008). In our estimation, this increase is related to crimes on the internet.
The report also states that, in 2022, 616 cases were opened for adults suspected of committing crimes against minors in educational institutions, an increase of about 30% from 2019 (when 472 cases were opened). In addition, between 2019 and 2022 there was a 91.5% increase in cases opened against adults for committing sexual offenses against minors in educational institutions (from 59 cases in 2019 to 113 cases in 2022).
The report was set to be submitted Sunday to President Isaac Herzog. "I call on the prime minister, the War Cabinet and everyone who sits around the decision-making table: the issue of children and youth and their protection, in body and soul, must be placed at the top of the national priorities," Windman said. After almost five months, this applies to the children in the primary and secondary trauma circles and the same applies to all children and youth in Israel. This will be the difference between walking toward a wide-open abyss, and survival."