Gaza home to largest number of amputee children in modern history: UN
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Lisa Doughten, Director of the OCHA Division of Financing and Partnerships, tells the UN Security Council that women and children are disproportionately affected by Israeli aggression.
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A 14-year-old Palestinian girl in Gaza who lost both her legs in an Israeli attack on Rafah treated in Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis on October 1, 2024 (Anadolu)
Speaking to the Security Council on Wednesday, a top UN official revealed that Gaza holds the greatest number of amputee children in contemporary history.
Ten children lose one or both of their legs per day, according to Lisa Doughten, Director of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Division of Financing and Partnerships. Doughten also stated that women and children are disproportionately affected by the trauma of Israeli aggression.
The director expressed that “Gaza is home to the largest cohort of child amputees in modern history,” adding that Palestinian women are 3 times more likely to have miscarriages or die giving birth.
"We cannot claim ignorance to what is happening — nor can we afford to look away,” Doughten stressed, calling on the Council and states to end the atrocities.
Read more: 'Israel' killed almost 17,000 children in Gaza in less than a year
Doughten issued a warning that over 2 million people in Gaza lack access to basic healthcare and over 50,000 pregnant women are denied medical treatment as a result of the deliberate and ongoing targeting of the health sector.
"Israel" has been committing "relentless and deliberate attacks" against Gaza's healthcare facilities, medical personnel, and injured civilians, United Nations investigators found, emphasizing that the occupation's actions are tantamount to war crimes and extermination, a crime against humanity.
According to a UN report, the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip included the "collective punishment" of Palestinians, majorly marked by the Israeli siege on the healthcare system through the continued blockade on all necessities for survival such as fuel, food, water, and medical supplies, as well as the extremely limited permission critical Palestinian patients are given to seek treatment outside the Strip.
Navi Pillay, the head of the commission that conducted the report, urged the Israeli occupation to immediately end its deliberate destruction of Gaza's healthcare system, further slamming its perpetration of "a concerted policy to destroy Gaza’s healthcare system as part of a broader assault on Gaza, committing war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities."
US doctors recount horrors of children shot in the head in Gaza: NYT
American physicians have recounted distressing tales and a pattern they witnessed while operating in Gaza: children being shot in the head, The New York Times reported days ago.
Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, a trauma and general surgeon, worked in Khan Younis, Gaza, for two weeks in March and April, and he said that he was astonished to find that other healthcare professionals had also witnessed minors being shot in the head or chest while "Israel" bombarded the strip.
The doctor revealed a chilling account of how despite working in conflict zones "nearly every day I was there, I saw a new young child who had been shot in the head or chest, virtually all of whom went on to die. Thirteen in total."
Sidhwa expressed that he believed this was due to a specific member of the Israeli occupation forces being stationed nearby where he operated.
However, upon returning to the US, he recalled telling another physician, “I couldn’t believe the number of kids I saw shot in the head."
To his amazement, the doctor responded, "Yeah, me too, every single day."
The circumstances in Gaza and the ongoing war have also caused "psychiatric distress" among children.
According to the poll, 52 healthcare personnel "observed nearly universal psychiatric distress in young children, and saw some who were suicidal or said they wished they had died."
