Shroud Bearing Names of 20,000 Gaza Children Displayed at UN
During the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly, several interfaith rights groups organized a deeply moving exhibition at the United Nations Church Center in New York. The exhibition displayed the handwritten names of 20,000 Palestinian children killed in Israeli military attacks in Gaza on a 100-metre (328-foot) white shroud.
The memorial shroud was unveiled through a joint initiative involving several human rights and religious organizations, including Doctors Against Genocide, Priests Against Genocide USA and Justice for All.
According to the organizers, the main purpose of the exhibition was to present the names and identities of the children killed in Gaza on the world stage, rather than reducing them to statistics or numbers. The organizers’ website confirms that the shroud carries the handwritten names of more than 20,000 children and was unveiled at the United Nations Church Center in New York on September 16.
However, there was no clear information about the specific source from which the names displayed in the exhibition were taken. Gaza’s Health Ministry maintains a detailed list of those killed, but it does not provide separate figures for civilians and armed fighters.
Meanwhile, Israeli military sources have said that they consider the overall figure of 73,400 deaths reported by the Hamas-run Health Ministry to be broadly accurate. According to estimates by IDF officials, an average of two to three civilians were killed for every armed fighter killed in Gaza.
The exhibition, held alongside the UN General Assembly session, is being presented by its organizers as a strong symbolic message aimed at drawing world leaders’ attention to the deaths of children and the ongoing destruction in Gaza. The UN’s 81st General Assembly session opened on September 8, with the general debate scheduled to begin on September 22.
