It has been two months since the ceasefire started in Gaza. The Palestinians are still killed by the Israeli army, but the relentless bombardment has stopped – at least for the moment. The essential help that was authorized in the band was cut two weeks ago.
What entered the previous month and a half could barely resuscitate the collapsed health system in Gaza. So many hospitals and clinics have been destroyed, especially in the North, that humanitarian organizations had to create tents to provide basic care for hundreds of thousands of survivors. The medical supplies that have entered are already exhausted.
In the midst of this continuous torment, the health system in Gaza cannot even start to recover, and even less to solve the multiple health crises that afflict the civilian population. One of the worst of them is the shocking number of amputees that the blind use of explosive weapons for 15 months has left.
According to the World Health Organization, in September 2024, 22,500 people in Gaza have suffered life injury since October 7, 2023, including serious injuries of members, amputations, trauma of spinal cord, traumatic brain damage and major burns.
At the height of the genocidal war, aid agencies and medical organizations indicated that more than 10 children lost one or two members every day in Gaza. Many suffered the operation without anesthesia and many of these members could have been saved if the health system had not been completely decimated. In December, the UN said that Gaza had the “largest number of children amputated per capita in the world”.
In July 2024, during a field visit to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, I saw in the first hand how one of the last functional hospitals in Gaza had trouble helping those who had been injured by explosive weapons. When I arrived at the hospital, many people were injured due to several bomb attacks.
I rushed to help because there was a serious shortage of staff. The first patient I attended was an injured girl by the name of Tala who was four years old. She had lost one of her legs because of the bombing and cried and shouted intensely. His mother, who was also seriously injured, could not help calm her down. I couldn’t do much for the little girl, except to change her bandage and give her an analgesic.
Then I saw a young man named Abdallah who was seriously injured and unconscious. When he arrived at the hospital, the rest of his leg was amputated. Her father told me that Abdallah’s grandmother and one of her brothers and sisters had been killed.
I returned to the hospital in December 2024, where I came across two little girls, Hanan, 3 years old and Misk, 1 year and 8 months, who had lost their members and their mother during an Israeli raid a few months earlier. Hanan had the amputation of his two feet, while his sister Misk lost one of them. Their aunt, to whom I spoke, told me about the fight to take care of them.
Misk had just learned to walk when the bombing was injured at the foot. Hanan was old enough to understand and notice the feet of other children, asking why he was missing.
These are just a few of the stories of thousands of children whose childhood was interrupted by Israeli bombs. They are unable to run and play with their peers, undergoing severe trauma in a place that cannot offer them basic care.
Before this genocidal war, Gaza was already struggling with a large number of amputees, victims of the previous Israeli wars and attacks against peaceful demonstrations.
But there were facilities and organizations that helped them. The Hamad Hospital for rehabilitation and prostheses was able to provide amputated prostheses. Various initiatives have provided psychosocial support and healing programs to overcome trauma and stigma. But all of this has now disappeared. Hamad hospital was destroyed in the first weeks of the genocidal war.
Decimated hospitals and makeshift clinics are hardly able to provide care for chronic diseases, and even less for disabled people. Rafah’s border is now closed again and none of the injured can travel for treatment. There is an urgent need of thousands of prosthetic members and assistance devices such as crutches and wheelchairs, but these have not been authorized.
With the extent of the destruction that the Gaza health sector has suffered, it will take years for it to be rebuilt – and it is if Israel stops blocking aid as a form of collective punishment. Meanwhile, the amputees will inevitably suffer not only from the lack of care and rehabilitation, but also from the deep psychological trauma which will remain not hidden. It will be the silent epidemic of Gaza.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Tel Aviv Tribune.
