NEW YORK — As 2024 comes to a close, I dare say that this has been an especially gruesome year for millions upon millions of young children, their parents and their teachers. The world has witnessed one horrific crisis of cruelty, dispossession and human suffering after another.

Ukraine has entered its worst winter so far, suffering a brutal war with 65 percent of its energy supplies destroyed. While the West Bank is increasingly under attack, the Gaza Strip is still being bombarded, and 1 million Palestinians lack shelter in the cold. As Tom Fletcher, the United Nations undersecretary general and emergency relief coordinator for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said: 'Gaza is apocalyptic right now.'