'We're being exterminated': Gaza children hold 'press conference' outside Al-Shifa hospital

Children staged a press conference outside Gaza's Al-Shifa hospital on Tuesday, pleading for the world to take action as Israel persists in the incessant bombardment of the Palestinian territory.

A group of children stood behind several microphones placed on a wooden table in a courtyard just outside the hospital where tens of thousands of people have sought sanctuary from the aerial and ground onslaught.

"Since 7 October, we've faced extermination, killing, bombing over our heads – all of this in front of the world," one of the children said, first in Arabic then in English. "We came to Al-Shifa to seek shelter... we faced death again when they targeted the hospital."

"We come now to shout, and invite you to protect us.

"We want to live, we want peace, we want judgement for the killers of children. We want shelter, food and education, and we want to live as the other children live."

Children have borne much of the devastating impact of Israel's war on Gaza, where they make up about half of the population.

Almost half of the more than 10,000 people killed since Israel began bombing the territory on 7 October have been children.

A child has been killed every 10 minutes during the onslaught, Gaza's media office said last week.

Hospitals, often a sanctuary during war for those forced from their homes by bombing, have not been spared by Israel.

An airstrike on the Al-Ahli hospital on 17 October killed almost 500 people, and an Israeli strike on an ambulance just outside Al-Shifa last week killed 15 people.

Earlier this week, 100 doctors in Israel had called for the hospital itself to be bombed, claiming that Hamas fighters were using it as a base.

The press conference, viewed millions of times on social media, moved its viewers.

"This destroyed me in many ways," one user of social media platform 'X' said in response to the video. "No child should beg for mercy, let alone hold a press conference to beg."