Gaza- In December 2023, Nessma Al -Faqawi, who embraced her infant child (6 months) inside their house in Khan Yunis camp in the southern Gaza Strip, was not aware that an explosion near her house would kidnap from her young one of his most important senses, hearing.
Nessma tells the details of that moment with her shivering voice: “We thought we had survived … no injuries, no blood, but we did not know that the sound that was like a thunderbolt kidnapped something that he did not see from useful, which is his hearing.”
Days after the explosion, Nessma noted that her child no longer responded to the sounds, and no longer turns or cries when hearing high voices, as before.
Moufid’s mother knew that there was a great imbalance, to go to her child to the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza Strip, to show medical examinations later that Moufid had fully deafness as a result of the tremendous pressure of the sound caused by the explosion.
In Gaza, there is no treatment, not even advanced examination devices in light of the siege and destruction, to be transferred to Egypt through the coordination of the World Health Organization, to show that he had already been deaf as a result of the sound of strong explosions according to the diagnosis of doctors.
Doctors in Egypt decided to perform a cochlear transplant for a useful that would restore the hope of hearing, but you need great financial support from any donor to perform it, which hinders the completion of the operation for the child according to his mother.
Besides the child, Moufid, the young Mahmoud Khalil Omar lost hearing in his right ear, as a result of a missile from an Israeli F-16 aircraft near his home.
Omar (40 years old) depends on his left ear in hearing as he spoke to “Al -Jazeera Net”, but the doctors told him that he would lose hearing completely if he did not get his appropriate treatment, which is to install a headphone for his right ear, which is not available in the Gaza Strip as a result of the closure of the crossings and the occupation authorities setting restrictions on the introduction of deaf category equipment.
Omar is currently suffering from a weakness in the auditory nerve as a result of the explosion near it, and his problem is exacerbated with the passage of time as a result of the lack of headphones, and the more he does not enter the headphones, the more the young man will get worse and will reach the stage of hearing loss completely, according to the evaluation of doctors.
Significantly
Hearing specialists in the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip, Ali Al -Hayek, confirmed the record of a noticeable increase in the number of hearing loss cases, especially between the children and the elderly, as a result of the repeated explosions that shake the sector daily.
Al -Hayek explained in an interview with “Al -Jazeera Net” that clinics and hospitals are witnessing the arrival of doubles from cases compared to what it was before the war from the hearing, due to the severity of the voices resulting from the bombing and explosions, which directly affect the auditory nerve.
He added that the auditory nerve cannot tolerate the pressure resulting from strong explosions, which leads to its permanent and weakening it, which forced the patient to use for life for life as an alternative solution.
Al -Hayek pointed out that the cochlear cultivation is one of the effective solutions to treat the cases of severe loss of hearing, but it is not available in Gaza, due to its need for accurate surgical operations that are performed in specialized medical centers outside the Strip.
He stressed that newborns are the most affected group of this crisis, as hearing at this stage is necessary for the development of speech and language, and any defect in it may lead to a permanent disability in communication and linguistic growth.
Al -Hayek also pointed out that the loss of hearing caused by severe noise is often always and not temporary, and is treated using the auditory aids in which the sector suffers from a severe shortage, due to the prevention of the occupation to enter it into Gaza despite the urgent need for it.
He added that the auxiliary tools for operating and maintaining auditory aids, such as batteries and spare parts, are either completely available or sold at exorbitant prices that exceed patients’ ability to tolerate them, which exacerbates the suffering of the injured and restricts treatment opportunities.
Numbers and statistics
The director of the Association of Our Children for the Deaf and Follow -up and Evaluation Expert, Fadi Abed, said that the impact of the continuous Israeli war on the Gaza Strip on the deaf was very adult, as the results of the evaluation that took place between 2023 and 2025 showed that about 35 thousand children and an adulterer of permanent or temporary hearing due to the war, especially as a result of explosions, psychological pressure and malnutrition.
This disturbing percentage reflects, according to Abed’s interview with “Al -Jazeera Net”, a major health and humanitarian crisis against the children of the Gaza Strip.
The situation in the Gaza Strip, according to Abed, is tragic, as 90% of children under the age of two suffer from severe diet, which increases the possibility of their health deterioration, including hearing, especially since nutrition is an essential component of the child’s growth properly, and any defect in it affects nervous and auditory development.
On the infrastructure and services for deaf children, Abed stressed that she does not work, as his association was severely damaged during the war, as is the case of many rehabilitation centers.
Education, rehabilitation and pronunciation services for deaf children have stopped due to the destruction of buildings or the difficulty of reaching them, leaving thousands of children without basic support, according to Abed.
He noted that 83% of people with disabilities have lost assistant devices (headphones, glasses, moving chairs …) during the displacement, and they cannot replace them, 75.6% of the elderly and people with disabilities suffer from poor ability to communicate due to the lack of appropriate means of communication, 89.1% and 92.1% of families of people with disabilities noticed an increase in crying and night terminals in children, according to a study conducted by his association within a month March 2025.
Deaf children in shelters also suffer from an inappropriate environment, as more than 85% of children with disabilities – including deaf children – suffer from lack of privacy, and the lack of auxiliary tools such as headphones or alternative communication devices, and children lack safe spaces to play or express themselves.
He indicated that there are no effective alternative qualifying services for deaf children in the Gaza Strip, due to the shortage of auxiliary devices such as headphones and speech devices, and most of them have lost during the displacement, and there are no organized psychological support programs, although more than 89% of children suffer from psychological trauma such as night crying or involuntary urination.
Deaf children in the Gaza Strip, according to Abed, need an urgent intervention to rehabilitate deaf centers, provide auditory devices, and integrate the needs of children with disabilities within the humanitarian response, warning that the souls of the deaf children and their future are at stake, amid fearing that temporary disability will turn into permanent due to negligence or delay in intervention.
The auditory nerve lapses
The director of the rehabilitation center of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, Khaled Abu Ghali, stressed that during the war, the problem of deaf children in the Gaza Strip, especially newborns, was exacerbated by the explosions near their presence.
The strong explosions caused by Israeli missiles, according to Abu Ghali’s speech to “Al -Jazeera Net”, affects the children and causes the auditory nerve, as scientific research indicates that the noise itself is far from the explosions affects the level of hearing in children and the elderly.
The Rehabilitation Center of the Red Crescent Society has monitored many cases that have suffered from hearing problems as a result of a nearby explosion or targeting children inside tents and homes, according to Abuogali.
Abu Ghali says: “I think this negative effect will continue for many years, and perhaps for life, in newborns, especially if they are in the range of fire or near the huge explosions that we hear and see them all, but in our center, we believe that this topic is also linked to the ear, nose and throat doctors, who have the ability to diagnose more than us as a rehabilitation center.”
One of the reasons that exacerbated the conditions of the deaf category in Gaza, according to Abu Ghali, is the destruction of the rehabilitation and therapeutic infrastructure for them, which prevented many of this category from reaching the treatment and rehabilitation centers, especially those who were displaced from their homes.
He explains that the Red Crescent Society has about 96 male and female students in the school, from the first grade to the third preparatory grade, but after the end of the truce that was in February, only 30% to 35% of students attended the school, and in conjunction with that, the study was disrupted in all schools and universities, whether it was nurseries or primary schools, which greatly affected the possibility of discovering health problems early and treating them from deaf children.
On medical headphones, he says: “Unfortunately, through cooperation between our association and international institutions, we were waiting for a quantity of auxiliary tools from the West Bank since October 2024, but so far, this aid has not reached, as the association’s management in Ramallah has not been able to enter the Gaza Strip.”
These tools include, according to Abu Ghali, the medical headphones, which are necessary for communication, especially for children whom these devices are an essential need in the shadow of the war.
Scientific study
The Independent Human Rights Authority indicates that 8% of Palestinians over the age of 18 in Gaza suffer disabilities due to wars and siege.
According to a fact -real fact, the commission estimated by the independent body on the case of persons with disabilities in the Israeli war aggression on the Gaza Strip in January 2024, that the year 2023 alone resulted in the injury of more than 12 thousand people with new disabilities, including partial or total deafness.
The authority confirms that the deaf in Gaza suffers from the interruption of medical services, the loss of psychological support, and the destruction of the infrastructure that allows them to integrate, in addition to the risk of murder because they are unable to hear warnings or warnings before the bombing.