GAZA (Palestine Foundation Information Center) Gaza now has the highest number of child amputees per capita in the world, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said on Wednesday.
Many children in Gaza are “losing limbs and undergoing surgeries without even anesthesia,” Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA commissioner-general said on social media platform X.
“Before the war, one in five families surveyed had at least one person with disabilities. Nearly half of them included a child with disabilities,” Lazzarini said.
“During this war, people needing special care have suffered in silence. Their stories are rarely told.”
The Israeli war, Lazzarini said, has also caused “an epidemic of traumatic injuries” with no rehabilitation services available.
“Now, Gaza has the highest number of child amputees per capita in the world – many losing limbs and undergoing surgeries without even anesthesia,” he added.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated in September that more than 22,500 people, or one in four people injured during the war in Gaza, sustained life-changing injuries and will need rehabilitation services “now and for years to come”.
Since launching its genocidal war on Gaza in October last year, Israel has killed over 44,500 Palestinians – most of them women and children – and injured more than 105,000, according to official figures.
The second year of the genocide in Gaza has drawn widespread international condemnation, with starvation tactics and blocking humanitarian aid deliveries denounced as deliberate attempts to destroy an entire population.
