Salim Oweis, a communications officer at UNICEF’s Middle East and North Africa office, has recently returned from Gaza and tells Al Jazeera the reality is much worse than what people see on TV screens.

“We don’t see on the screens the depth of the deaths and destruction, the depths of people suffering and their daily struggles for the basics of the basics,” he said. “So the situation there is really dire.”

“I was based in Deir el-Balah and Khan Younis and also north of Gaza, and to be honest, the more you move, the more suffering and destruction you see. The situation is really beyond description,” he said.

He described the impact of repeated attacks on schools as devastating.

“Those schools are not schools any more. They are very basic shelters for so many families, and we have unfortunately seen in the last 10 months so many of those attacks on schools, on hospitals, on civilian infrastructure that children and families rely on, which makes life even more miserable.”