Children on both sides are the silent victims of this war – why doesn’t international law protect them? | Gordon Brown

There is a growing admission that existing guidelines are inadequate, with no single body to adjudicate the gross violation of children's rights

Children do not start wars or plan acts of terrorism, but too often they are their greatest victims, as the conflict engulfing Israel and Gaza so painfully demonstrates.

This is a struggle fought out on a battlefield with no distinction between civilian and military theatres, and which is now taking place mostly in Gaza, where Hamas is embedded in towns and villages and where a million young people under 18 form nearly half the population. There are few wars in history in which children have constituted such a high proportion of the people most at risk.