/ world today news/ International humanitarian workers describe a growing humanitarian nightmare in the Strip. Israel is forcing Gaza’s 2.3 million residents into increasingly cramped areas where the basic necessities of survival cannot be met.
UNICEF spokesman James Elder said: “About 1,000 children in Gaza have lost one or both of their legs.” He told reporters in Geneva that “every child goes through these ten weeks of hell and none of them can get out.”
Due to the “total” blockade imposed by Israel on the enclave and the shortage of anesthetics, electricity and running water, medical workers are forced to perform these operations in unsanitary conditions and without painkillers.
Elder, who recently returned from the besieged enclave, said the few remaining hospitals in Gaza were overflowing with children and their parents, all with “terrible wounds of war”. Many of them are children with amputated legs, he said.
„As a parent of a seriously ill child told me, “Our situation is utter misery… I don’t know if we’re going to make it through this.” he said.
Spokesperson Dr Margaret Harris added that WHO staff in Gaza had been told they could not go through emergency rooms “no fear of stepping on people” who are lying on the floor in “severe pain” and they want food and water. She called the situation “outrageous” and said it was “unbelievable that the world allows this to go on”.
„This is not at all like a natural disaster preventing the flow of anesthesia to Gaza.” said Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF) founder Steve Soasby in an interview with Democracy Now.
„It is absolutely unimaginable that this could happen in our modern world,” He added that the number of children with amputations is likely to increase, “because many of these children have severe injuries [което означава]that they will need amputations in the coming weeks and months.”
„Not only were their limbs amputated without anesthesia, “But many of them were amputated very quickly,” he said.
„About half of my surgical list, which is about 10-12 cases every day, were children,” said Dr. Hassan Abu Sita, a surgeon, at a news conference in November from London, traveling to Gaza to treat patients amid the ongoing Israeli offensive.
Dr. Ghassan Abu Sita told Middle East Eye that performing such operations without anesthesia is “one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my career” . At a press conference in November, he said: “I once amputated six children in one night at Al Ahli Hospital.”
The amputation crisis
Before the war in Gaza, 1 2% of Palestinian children between the ages of two and 17 had one or more functional disabilities, and 21% of families in Gaza had at least one member with a physical or mental disability.
According to the PCRF, even before the fighting began, Gaza was already suffering from “amputation related crisis”.
The ongoing Israeli blockade of the enclave, which strictly controls the movement of people, medical equipment and medicine in and out of the area, means that timely evacuation of the wounded to better equipped and equipped hospitals in the occupied West Bank is very often impossible.
Barriers to access to health care are such that the UN identifies “the persons in need of medical referrals’ as a vulnerable group among the Palestinian population.
According to the PCRF, many Palestinians are at risk of developing osteomyelitis (a bone infection) after injury if medical attention is delayed. The lack of medical resources and restrictions on movement in the besieged zone mean that many otherwise treatable injuries require amputation.
Furthermore, access to post-amputation prostheses was extremely difficult in Gaza even before the outbreak of hostilities: only one prosthetic limb center was operating in the besieged enclave.
In 2018-19, Israeli troops opened fire on thousands of Palestinians during the Great March of Return, killing 214 people, including 46 children, and injuring more than 36,100 people, including almost 8,800 children.
More than 7,000 live ammunition injuries (88 percent) involved limb injuries, with at least 156 requiring amputation.
After the attack on the March of Return, Israel rejected most of the wounded’s requests for medical permission to access specialized treatment in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Israeli hospitals.
According to Gada Majadi and Hadas Ziv, if patients had access to such specialized treatment, many of them could save their limbs.
The Israeli army destroyed most of the hospitals in Gaza. Health facilities that remain operational are subject to frequent attacks and are experiencing drug shortages. A Washington Post investigation recently revealed that the Israeli Air Force is using 2,000-pound bombs near hospitals.
Elder also said that because of Israeli military operations, civilians are constantly under threat of death. He explained: “Where should we place the children and their families?” They are not safe in hospitals. They are not safe in shelters. And they’re certainly not safe in so-called “safe” areas. Safe zones are “small patches of barren land, or street corners, or dilapidated buildings, where there is no water, no amenities, no shelter from the cold and rain, no sewage.”
In recent weeks, experts have warned that pushing Palestinians into safe zones without any aid or infrastructure will lead to famine and epidemics.
Aid groups have already estimated there are 100,000 cases of diarrhea and 150,000 respiratory infections in the country. In addition, 570,000 Palestinians in Gaza are starving. Elder warned that the combination of malnutrition and disease would be fatal to the population.
„An immediate and lasting humanitarian ceasefire is the only way to end the killing and injury of children, as well as child deaths from disease, and to ensure the urgent delivery of desperately needed life-saving aid.” explained a UNICEF spokesperson.
The confirmed Palestinian death toll from Israel’s ongoing attacks on the Gaza Strip has risen to 21,110, the territory’s health ministry said on Wednesday, with 70 percent of the victims women and children.
Another 54,536 people were injured in Israeli attacks on the besieged enclave.
Translation: ES
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