As the Israel-Hamas conflict enters its fourth week a leading children's charity in the UK has called for fighters on both sides to show restraint and spare the lives of the children living in the shadow of war.

On Monday, Save the Children UK said that 3,257 children have been reported killed since October 7, including at least 3,195 in Gaza, 33 in the West Bank, and 29 in Israel, according to the Ministries of Health in Gaza and Israel respectively.

The number of children reported killed in just three weeks in Gaza is more than the number killed in armed conflict globally – across more than 20 countries – over the course of a whole year, for the last three years.

James Denselow, Head of Humanitarian and Conflict at Save the Children UK, has urged Israel and Hamas to do more to protect children and highlighted the logistical challenges of finding shelter for them in a small area facing constant bombardment.

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"Eighty percent of the population in Gaza are children," he said. "And of course, the key issue is the amount of violence that's happening around their homes, their schools, the hospitals, the playgrounds. 

"There's no safe place in Gaza. What is desperately needed is some form of humanitarian ceasefire or de-escalation or mechanism in which children can be best protected from weapons meant for modern battlefields not to be used in proximity to the most vulnerable amongst us."

Additional statistics from the United Nations (UN) on Monday revealed that the death toll in Gaza had surpassed 8,000, most of whom are women and children. That figure is likely to soar after Israel began its ground offensive in the city over the weekend and humanitarian aid continues to be restricted.

There are currently 600,000 people seeking shelter through the UN Palestine refugee relief organisation and there are worries that if hospitals and housing continue to be targeted, there won't be sufficient medical facilities to save the lives of people living there, including tens of thousands of children.

Denselow added: "One of the crucial difficulties for any military act operating in Gaza is that it's such a densely populated area that if you drop a 500-pound bomb on a military target, you may have reverberating effects that have huge consequences for the civilian population."

"So to be proportional in the response there is incredibly difficult. And I think the number of children who have been killed and critically injured and of course, a lot of the children who've been injured will require specialist medical care not available. 

"Currently in Gaza, where stocks of medicine are running desperately low, if you've lost a limb, you'll need significant care, you'll need prosthetics, you'll need lots of recovery support and that mess that isn't available in Gaza right now. So it's a combination of the perfect storm of aid not being allowed to get in, injured children not being allowed to get out, and levels of violence continuing to increase."

Residents living near Shifa Hospital, the territory's largest, said Israeli airstrikes overnight on Monday hit near the complex where tens of thousands of civilians are sheltering. Israel accuses Hamas of having a secret command post beneath the hospital but has not provided much evidence. Hamas denies the allegations.

Denselow says both sides must immediately outline clear lines of separation between the battlefield and public facilities. "Everyone knows where the hospitals are in conflict zones and all armed actors should know the coordinates, the location of hospitals, and be very clear that these are off limits. These are not the targets. 

"We're seeing so many people rushed in not just for the treatment for severely injured children, but also people whose homes have been destroyed and they have no safe place to go. So hospitals are sort of the most obvious and dramatic places that we need to protect. 

"There is concern that hospitals are being asked to evacuate when you have children in incubators or having just had severe surgery or having serious surgery, this is impossible. So the future of hospitals in Gaza is a litmus test for for the conduct of hostilities in this conflict."

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