Children sit in a street-level bomb shelter in the southern Israeli community of Nitzan, July 11, 2014. Photo: Hadas Parush / Flash90.

In a letter sent to a top UN official on Thursday, the Jewish state’s envoy to the global body bemoaned the plight of Israeli children exposed to Hamas rocket fire from the Gaza Strip.

“Life in Israel’s southern population centers has been abruptly halted on numerous occasions due to the violent attacks coming from the Gaza Strip,” Ambassador Danny Danon wrote to Virginia Gamba, the UN secretary-general’s special representative for children and armed conflict. “Hamas continues to instigate violence against southern Israel, forcing our civilians to live under a constant cloud of fear.”

In the most recent upsurge of violence earlier this month “children’s soccer games were abruptly interrupted both in Rehovot and Gan Yavne, when alarms went off in nearby cities where explosions were reported, and the children had to take cover on the ground,” Danon noted.

“No nation — much less its children — should have to live under a constant fear of sudden and violent attack from a terrorist organization committed to the destruction of that nation,” Danon went on to say. “Israel seeks a peaceful border with the Gaza Strip, yet so long as Hamas continues to fan the flames of conflict rather than serving its own people, violence will override peace.”

“It is a sad reality that these occurrences provide just a glimpse into the reality that Israel’s children face on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis,” Danon pointed out. “In addition to any physical cost these attacks inflict, the psychological damage is far more severe.”