More Israeli War Crimes: Gaza’s Child Amputees Face Further Risks Without Expert Care
By Arafat Barbakh, Maggie Fick, and Emma Farge
Global Research,
Apart from the obvious, also sending to demonstrate again that even for the most unlikely, this massacre is proving a desert too far.
That Reuters and US News should be openly critical of the shimmering “democracy” is surely quite something.
—Felicity Arbuthnot, Global Research, January 9, 2024
*
Eleven-year-old Noor’s left leg was almost entirely torn off when her home in Jabalia, Gaza was hit by an explosion in October. Now her right leg, fitted with a heavy metal bar and four screws drilled into the bone, may have to be amputated.
“It hurts me a lot … I’m afraid that they’ll have to cut off my other leg,” she said from her hospital bed, staring at her clunky fixation device.
“I used to run and play, I was so happy with my life, but now when I lost my leg, my life became ugly and I got sad. I hope I can get an artificial limb.”
In bombed-out Gaza, a generation of child amputees is emerging as Israel’s retaliatory blitz after Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attacks has led to blast and crush injuries as explosive weapons tear through densely-packed high-rise housing blocks.
Israeli authorities have previously said they work to minimise harm to civilians. Israel’s military spokesperson’s unit pointed to what it called Hamas’ strategy of the “exploitation of civilian structures for terror purposes” but provided no specific comment on child amputees.
Doctors and aid workers say Gaza’s collapsed medical system is ill-placed to give children the intricate follow-up care they need to salvage their still-growing, truncated bones. Only 30% of pre-conflict medics are working due to killings, detentions and displacements, according to the World Health Organization.
More than 1,000 children had undergone leg amputations, sometimes more than once or on both legs, by end-November, according to U.N. children’s agency UNICEF, in a conflict where Gaza health authorities say nearly a quarter of injuries are among children.
