Nearly 42,000 people, a quarter of them children, have suffered “life-changing injuries” including amputations, and head and spinal cord injuries in Israel’s war in Gaza, the World Health Organization said Thursday.
A fresh analysis from the United Nations’ health agency found that a quarter of those hurt over the two-year conflict have injuries that will seriously impact the rest of their lives.
“Life-long rehabilitation will be required,” Richard Peeperkorn, the WHO’s representative in the Palestinian territories, told a press conference.
Since the war began with Hamas’s deadly attack inside Israel on October 7, 2023, Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 66,000 Palestinians, according to health ministry figures in Hamas-run Gaza that the UN considers reliable.
Nearly 170,000 more have meanwhile been injured, according to the same source.
Drawing on data from 22 WHO-supported Emergency Medical Teams, the Gaza health ministry and other health partners, Thursday’s report estimated that 41,844 had suffered life-changing injuries.
More than 5,000 had faced amputations, it said, cautioning that that number could be “undercounted” since it excluded so-called traumatic amputations which occur at the time of injury, outside of the health facility.
“Children appear to be disproportionately vulnerable to amputations,” Pete Skelton, the report’s main author, told journalists.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said “the most common injuries requiring rehabilitation are blast injuries to legs and arms”.
Other life-altering injuries including spinal cord injury, traumatic brain injury and major burn injuries, he said, adding that “severe facial and eye injuries are also common, resulting in significant impairment and disfigurement”.
The WHO stressed the dire need for rehabilitation services.
But Tedros warned that “just when they are needed most, attacks, insecurity and displacement have put them out of reach”.
“The explosions that cause these injuries also destroy the health facilities and services needed to deal with them,” he said.
The WHO chief cautioned that as new injuries mount and health needs rise in famine-hit Gaza, “the health system teeters on the brink of collapse”.
He pointed out that only 14 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remained even partially functional.
And while Gaza once counted around 1,300 physiotherapists and 400 occupational therapists, the WHO pointed out that many had been displaced, and dozens had been killed.
Despite the huge number of amputations, Gaza currently has only eight prosthetists to manufacture and fit artificial limbs.
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© Agence France-Presse
