An official in the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip announced today, Friday, that 4,500 cases of amputation of the upper and lower limbs have been recorded since the start of the Israeli aggression on the Strip in October 2023.
Director of the Ministry’s Health Information Unit, Zaher Al-Wahidi, said, “We recorded 4,500 amputation cases until the end of 2024 as a result of the ongoing Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.”
Al-Wahidi explained in a statement to Anadolu Agency that the presence of about 800 Palestinian children has been documented, amounting to 18% of the total recorded amputation cases.
The Palestinian health official stated that 540 women were also among those cases, representing 12% of the total number.
Al-Wahidi added that these numbers reflect the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe to which Palestinian civilians are exposed, especially the most vulnerable groups of children and women.
Doctors and government officials expected that the number of amputations – especially among children – would be many times the announced number, as it is impossible to issue accurate statistics in light of the continuing genocide and the accompanying destruction of civilian facilities.
Al-Wahidi indicated that the numbers are likely to rise as the genocide continues, which will increase the pressure on the health system, which is already suffering from a scarcity of medical supplies due to the ongoing siege on the Strip for more than 18 years.
He stressed that the health sector is in urgent need of medical and humanitarian support to confront the escalating crisis, calling on the international community to take urgent action to stop Israeli violations and ensure the protection of civilians.
Amputation cases among children
With the rise in cases of child amputations, Lisa Dowton, an official at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said in October 2024 that Gaza has become home to the largest group of child amputees in modern history.
At the time, Doten quoted the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) as saying that 10 children in Gaza lose one or both legs every day as a result of the genocide.
This tragic situation that the children of Gaza are experiencing is described by the Commissioner-General of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, as a disability pandemic that is ravaging the Strip, amid the scarcity of the availability of artificial limbs or psychological and physical rehabilitation centers that restore hope to amputees.
A number of prosthetic limbs are provided as part of the relief aid provided by countries and medical delegations to the Gaza Strip.
Over the course of months of aggression, the Israeli army targeted and took out of service the Hamad Rehabilitation and Prosthetics Hospital, which is the only hospital specialized in the Gaza Strip, in addition to the Gaza Center for Prosthetics of the Gaza Municipality, according to the Ministry of Health.