A paramedic volunteer lays the body one of the six family members on a stretcher after they were killed on Wednesday when their car was struck in an Israeli airstrike on a highway as they fled their village, during a funeral procession in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon. AP
UNICEF, the UN children's agency, called the figures "staggering" and stressed that under international humanitarian law, children had to be protected at all times during conflict.
"According to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health, 77 children have reportedly been killed or injured over the past week alone," UNICEF spokesman Ricardo Pires told a media briefing in Geneva.
"Fifteen children killed and 62 injured in seven days. That's an average of 11 children every 24 hours.
"We understand the vast majority of these children were impacted by airstrikes in south Lebanon. Only yesterday, seven children were killed and 30 injured," he said.
The latest deaths came as Israel intensified its airstrikes across Lebanon despite a ceasefire that took effect on April 17, adding to a mounting civilian toll.
The ceasefire in Israel's war on Lebanon has never been fully observed. Israel has continuously violated the truce, prompting Hezbollah retaliation on Israeli targets in southern Lebanon and across the border.
Under the terms of the US-brokered ceasefire, Israel reserved the right to act against what it deemed "planned or imminent attacks." However, data shows the Israeli military systematically used this clause to continue its attacks on civilians.
According to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health, at least 603 people have been killed and 1,774 others wounded in Lebanon since the mid-April ceasefire went into effect.
Israeli troops who invaded Lebanon are also launching attacks and levelling entire towns inside an Israeli-declared "yellow line" running around 10 kilometres (six miles) deep along Lebanon's southern border.
Since Israel's war on Lebanon began on March 2, Israeli attacks have killed 3,324 people and wounded 10,027 others, according to the health ministry figures.
In total, since the ceasefire was announced, 55 children have been killed and 212 wounded, Pires said.
Pires called for all parties to respect the ceasefire in full and to comply at all times with international humanitarian law, under which "children and civilian infrastructure must be protected at all times".
Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel on 2 March after the US and Israel launched their war on Iran. But the escalation did not emerge in isolation. It followed 15 months of Israeli violations of the November 2024 ceasefire, during which hundreds of Lebanese civilians were killed.
It also came after Israel had already finalized plans for a wider assault on Lebanon, according to reports, and amid escalating Israeli calls and later formal directives to militarily occupy southern Lebanon up to the Litani River.
In recent days, Israel has issued repeated forced displacement orders to swathes of the southern coastal city of Tyre and carried out heavy strikes.
*This story was edited by Ahram Online.
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