Five-year-old Sila Abu Aklan pursed her lips tightly as she practiced walking with a prosthetic leg for the first time at a clinic in Gaza City. It's been nearly 15 months since her leg was amputated after suffering severe burns in an Israeli airstrike. Now she's finally getting a prosthetic leg.
The Associated Press (AP) reports that thousands of children with limbs amputated by Israeli bombing are one of the most shocking scenes of this war. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) described it as “the largest group of child amputations in modern history.”
During the 17 months of war, supplies and services for children and adults with amputees were far below the necessary level. The ceasefire in Gaza, which began in mid-January, allowed aid organizations to import more prostheses, wheelchairs, crutches and other aids.
However, this only covered about 20 percent of total needs, says Loaj Abu Saif, director of the disability program at the humanitarian organization Medical Assistance for Palestine (MAP).
That possibility was abruptly ended when Israel banned the entry of all medical supplies, as well as food, fuel and other aid, on March 2. The continuation of Israel's military campaign last week, which killed hundreds of Palestinians, has only increased the number of amputees.
Multiple traumas
With limited help, the children are dealing with the psychological pain of losing a limb, along with other traumas, the AP writes.
Sila's mother, father and sisters were killed in an airstrike on their home in December 2023. Sila suffered severe burns to her right leg. A month of treatment had no effect, and she would scream in unbearable pain, said her aunt, Jasmine Al-Gofari. Doctors had to amputate her leg above the knee.
"I try as much as I can to make her happy. But the truth is that there are limits to her happiness. Pain is pain, and an amputation is an amputation," Al-Gofari told the American news agency.
Sila watches other girls play and tries to catch up with them with the help of a walker, but she often falls. "She tells me, 'Why am I like this? Why am I not like them?'" her aunt told the AP.
In October 2023, eleven-year-old Rima lost her arm when an airstrike occurred near her home while her family was fleeing their home in Gaza City.
Rim can no longer dress herself, comb her hair or tie her shoelaces. She gets angry easily and hits her siblings if she doesn't find someone to help her, her mother said. Sometimes she withdraws into herself and just watches other children as they play.
“She once told her father she wanted to die,” her mother said. “Another time, we were talking about meat, and she said, ‘Slaughter me like a sheep,’ and she laughed.”
Thousands need help
About 3.000 to 4.000 children in Gaza will have lost limbs by November 2024, according to Jamal al-Rozi and Hussein Abu Mansur, prominent experts on rehabilitation programs in the area.
The World Health Organization estimated in September that up to 17.500 adults and children had suffered severe limb injuries, requiring rehabilitation and assistance.
During the war, hospitals lacked the drugs that could prevent amputations. Doctors say they had to amputate limbs due to infections that could have been easily cured.
AP reports that in its military campaign in Gaza, Israel is bombing homes and shelters housing families almost daily.
The Gaza Health Ministry on Monday released a list of the names of more than 15.000 children, aged up to 17, who were killed in the Israeli offensive. Among them were nearly 5.000 children under the age of six, including 876 babies who did not live to see their first birthday.
During the war, hospitals lacked drugs that could prevent amputations. Doctors say they had to amputate limbs due to infections that could have been easily cured.
In total, the Israeli offensive has killed more than 50.000 Palestinians of all ages and wounded more than 113.000, according to the ministry, which does not say how many were civilians and how many were combatants. Nearly 90 percent of the population of about 2,3 million people has been displaced, and large parts of Gaza have been razed to the ground.
Israel launched a campaign to destroy Hamas after an October 7, 2023, attack on the country's south, in which the militants killed about 1.200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped 251. Israel says it is targeting Hamas and blames the group for civilian deaths because it operates in residential areas.
Conditions in the camps make life even more difficult
In May last year, thirteen-year-old Moat Abdelal had his leg amputated above the knee after an Israeli airstrike on the southern town of Rafah.
The family had to flee to a tent camp near the nearby town of Khan Younis. During the ceasefire, they returned to their hometown of Jabaliya in northern Gaza, but their house was destroyed, so they now live in a tent next to the ruins, said his father, Hussein Abdelal.
Moat's mental condition is deteriorating, his father says. Moving around with crutches in the rubble is difficult. Due to complications, doctors had to amputate even more of his leg, almost to the hip. The boy learned that some of his friends from the neighborhood had been killed.
"He's having a hard time coping with his new situation. He's not sleeping well. It's hard for us to see him like this," Abdelal said.
Humanitarian organizations provide limited services
Sila is being treated at the Artificial Limbs and Polio Center in Gaza City, which was started by the International Committee of the Red Cross. The center has provided physical therapy, wheelchairs and prosthetics to hundreds of Palestinians with amputees or paralysis.
But supplies are limited, the AP points out. Wheelchairs are urgently needed, with 50 to 60 people requesting them daily in northern Gaza alone, said Mahmoud Shalabi of the MAP.
Al-Rozi, executive director of the National Rehabilitation Society in the Gaza Strip, said Israel is blocking the entry of prosthetic materials into Gaza on the grounds that they could have dual or military uses. COGAT, the Israeli military body that oversees aid, says there have never been restrictions on the entry of medical supplies into Gaza, including wheelchairs, prostheses and crutches.
Some hope for treatment abroad
Some children with amputees have been evacuated from Gaza for treatment. But the pace of medical evacuations has been slow, at just a few dozen a day, and has slowed since Israeli strikes last week. According to the AP, as many as 13.000 patients with various conditions are waiting for a chance to leave.
Asma al-Nashash only wants her 11-year-old son, Abdulrahman, to go abroad to get a prosthetic leg.
The boy was selling items from a stall in a UN school converted into a shelter in the overcrowded Nuseirat refugee camp when an airstrike hit. Shrapnel pierced his leg, and doctors were unable to save it.
Since then, he often sits alone, playing games on her phone, because he can't play football with other children, Asma said. Others mock him, calling him "the boy with one leg."
"My heart breaks when I see him like this, and I can't do anything for him," she said.
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