• Starmer expected to join Trump-led board to oversee Gaza, Times says
• Six dead as displaced Palestinians struggle to hold ground in torrential rain

GENEVA: At least 100 children have been killed by Israeli airstrikes and ground forces in Gaza since the start of a tenuous ceasefire three months ago, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

The UN children’s agency Unicef said that at least 60 boys and 40 girls had been killed in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory since early October.

“More than 100 children have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire,” Unicef spokesman James Elder told reporters in Geneva.

“That’s roughly a girl or a boy killed here every day during a ceasefire,” he said, speaking from Gaza City.

“These children are killed from airstrikes, drone strikes, including suicide drones. They’re killed from tank shelling. They’re killed from live ammunition. They’re killed from quad copters.

“We are at 100 — no doubt,” he said, adding that the true number was likely higher. “A ceasefire that slows the bombs is progress but one that still buries children is not enough.”

An official at Gaza’s health ministry, which maintains casualty records, has reported a higher figure of 165 children killed during the tenuous ceasefire, out of a total 442 fatalities.

In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed there since the beginning of the conflict. Nearly 80 per cent of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged in the relentless air and ground offensive, according to UN data.

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is expected to accept an offer to sit on a US President Trump-led board that would temporarily run Gaza, The Times newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The report cited a senior British official as saying the first meeting was expected to take place next week on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Rainstorm, flood

Meanwhile, a rainstorm swept across the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, flooding hundreds of tents, collapsing homes sheltering families displaced by two years of war and killing at least six people, local health officials said.

Medics said five people, including two women and a girl, died when homes collapsed near Gaza City’s beach, while a one-year-old boy died of extreme cold in a tent in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza.

Tents were torn from their stakes, some flying dozens of meters before crashing to the ground. Others lay crumpled in muddy pools as families scrambled to salvage what they could. Residents tried to rescue remaining shelters, hammering in loosened pegs and stacking sandbags around the edges to keep floodwaters from pouring inside.

“We didn’t realize what was happening until the wall started collapsing an eight-meter-high wall, a strong concrete wall. Because of the speed and force of the wind, the wall fell on top of us, onto three tents, said Bassel Hamuda, a displaced man in Gaza.

The elderly man, 73 years old, was martyred. His son’s wife was killed, and his son’s daughter was killed, he said.

Published in Dawn, January 14th, 2026