“Hamas” and “Jihad” refuse to “create a new reality” in Gaza away from “the will of the people and the resistance.”

Medical charities have expressed their belief that the ongoing Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip has injured a greater number of civilians who have undergone amputations than any other recent conflict, according to a report by the British newspaper The Telegraph.

The report indicated that as fighting continues inside the besieged Strip, despite the United Nations Security Council’s ceasefire resolution, many fear that the unprecedented intensity of bombing over 6 months means that there will be a greater number of people with amputees than before. This is the case in Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan.

He pointed out that despite the lack of accurate data, a large percentage of the 75,000 people who have been injured since October of last year require prosthetic limbs, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

10 thousand people need amputations

Humanity and Inclusion (HI), also known as Disability International, reported that between 70 and 80 percent of people admitted to the 12 partially functioning hospitals inside Gaza had lost limbs or suffered spinal injuries. Spinal.

Many of the 10,000 people evaluated by the committee had to undergo amputations, including hundreds of children.

Last January, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimated that about a thousand children in Gaza had lost one or both of their legs, the equivalent of about 10 children every day.

Infants “have never and will never learn to walk”

There is no doubt that this number has increased significantly as the Israeli attack continues unabated in densely populated areas, leaving behind many individual disasters, according to the report.

Médecins Sans Frontières coordinator, Marie-Uri Berriot-Riveal, witnessed a sad scene of dozens of children whose limbs were amputated in Al-Aqsa Hospital just last week.

She said: “It is absolutely devastating to see infants as young as one year old having their limbs amputated. “These are children who never learned to walk, and now they will never be able to walk.”

She added: “I saw many patients who arrived at the hospital who had already lost their legs and arms. Then there were others who were seriously injured in the explosion and had to have their limbs amputated because the lack of access to healthcare and post-operative care meant their wounds would otherwise become infected.”

Extremity injuries will have to wait

The report indicated that, with little indication that Israel will ease its tight control over border crossing points to conduct more medical evacuations, agencies fear that thousands of infected people who have not yet undergone surgery are at risk of infection.

In Gaza, where just under half the population is under 18 years of age, a large proportion of young people will grow up with war-related disabilities; Because the amputation site cannot be surgically prepared for the installation of prosthetics.

The report quoted Aseel Baydoun, director of advocacy and campaigns for the Medical Aid Society for Palestinians (MAP), as saying, “A generation of amputee children is emerging.” “We know that Gaza’s collapsed medical system is too overwhelmed to give children with long-term injuries the complex follow-up care they need to save their severed, still-growing bones.”

She added: “I have heard from surgeons working in the emergency medical teams of the Palestinian Medical Aid Society in Gaza that hospitals are already so overcrowded that they can only treat patients who need life-saving procedures, such as nerve injuries or blood vessel injuries, while those who have “The parties are waiting.”

The wars of Ukraine, Vietnam, Germany… and Gaza

Official figures estimate the number of Ukrainians who have undergone amputations since the Russian invasion two years ago at about 20,000 people. Some believe that the real number may be much higher, and may reach 50 thousand.

Over the course of World War I, historians estimate that the number of amputations in Germany reached 67,000, while in Britain it reached 41,000.

The use of new weapons on a previously unimaginable scale, along with problems such as frostbite and infection in the trenches, contributed to many soldiers losing limbs.

About 60,000 amputations were performed in the American Civil War, a greater number than in any other conflict in which American forces participated.

Over the course of two decades of war in Vietnam, about 100,000 people became amputees. Many others are still losing limbs today; Because of unexploded mines stuck in the ground.

The Syrian and Gaza wars… and the advantage of being able to escape

In 2017, UNICEF reported that 86,000 people lost their limbs after 7 years of war in Syria, although no official data was ever collected.

The report stressed that what distinguishes Gaza from the Syrian regime’s raids on residential areas in Israel’s neighbor in the Middle East is the impossibility of escape.

He added that although Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, with the help of Russian fighter jets and drones, indiscriminately bombed cities such as Homs and Aleppo, there was at least the possibility of fleeing to a safer place. In Gaza, this is not an option.

The report quoted Ghassan Abu Sitta, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon based in London, who worked in Gaza during the first months of the Gaza war, as saying, “This is the largest group of amputee children in history.”

In November, Ghassan Abu Sitta told The Telegraph how he was forced to perform amputations on six children in one night. He described how amputation was often the only option available, when Israeli forces surrounded the blood bank, preventing blood transfusions.

Medical organizations in Gaza, including Humanity and Inclusion and Doctors Without Borders, confirm that there is an urgent need for thousands of prosthetic limbs and assistive devices such as crutches and wheelchairs.

Reham Shaheen, a rehabilitation expert at the Humanity and Inclusion Organization, said, “The numbers are huge, and this is due to the type of weapons used.”

She explained, “In the context of war injuries caused by explosive weapons, multiple operations are often needed, including limb reconstruction and plastic surgery. These procedures are not currently available in Gaza, and people will have to wait a long time to obtain a prosthetic limb.”

“Everything is out of stock,” she added. “Supplies are our main challenge, along with security concerns about how to move between hospitals and shelters without being killed or injured.”

Aseel Baydoun pointed out that the plight of amputees is getting worse. Because of their inability to flee when the next wave of attacks comes, according to the Telegraph newspaper.

Tough challenges

According to the report, one of the most severe challenges inside Gaza is providing basic pre-prosthetic rehabilitation care for amputees, in horribly overcrowded and unsanitary conditions, where the waiting period after amputation surgery to allow the amputation site to be prepared for the prosthetic limb usually ranges from three to four days. Months.

However, all that can be done at the moment is to maintain the shape of the amputation site so that the prosthesis can be fitted at a later time.

According to the World Health Organization, only 30 percent of doctors who were working before the current conflict are still able to work, due to killings, detentions and displacement.

Since October, Humanity and Inclusion nurses have bandaged more than 2,200 wounds. They have become experts in using different methods to distract patients, as anesthesia drugs are not available to relieve pain during painful procedures.

Because children are too weak to extricate themselves from the rubble of residential buildings destroyed by Israeli bombs, their injured limbs often cannot be saved, even if they reach hospital. Younger people are particularly vulnerable to potentially life-altering injuries as a result of explosions, according to the report.

The report stated that a small percentage were evacuated earlier this year, as part of a deal Qatar concluded with Israel, Hamas, and Egypt for wounded Palestinians who needed urgent medical care.

Among them is a 4-year-old girl whose left leg was amputated after being hit by shrapnel and it turned into gangrene. The doctor who initially treated her did not have any antiseptic, so he cauterized the bleeding with the hot blade of a kitchen knife.

Israel dropped more than 25 thousand tons of explosives on Gaza

The Permanent Observer Mission of the State of Palestine to the United Nations Office said that Israel has already dropped more than 25,000 tons of explosives on Gaza in the form of more than 12,000 bombs.

The report quoted Maria Marelli, a physical therapist at the Humanity and Inclusion Organization, who had just returned from a mission to Rafah, as saying: “The inability to obtain equipment and supplies severely limits what can be achieved.”

She added: “If we are not able to bring assistive devices such as prosthetic limbs into Gaza, we will not be able to provide what is needed. “It’s very annoying.”

In crowded Rafah, everyone is waiting

Among those treated by the organization in Rafah in recent weeks is Ali (14 years old), from northern Gaza, who was traveling south in a convoy with his family when they were bombed by an Israeli missile fired from the air.

Ali’s mother, father and brother were killed. Although he survived, the injuries to his left leg were so severe that doctors amputated it above the knee, and he needs further surgery and a wheelchair, neither of which is currently available.

Describing the chaotic conditions in Rafah, to which half of the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million people have fled, Maria continued: “Right now, the city is so overcrowded that every sidewalk is covered with tents. “There are people everywhere, all waiting.”

She added: “The shelter we visited, a former school, was designed to hold 2,000 people, but now houses 28,000 people, with families crowded into classrooms, hallways and tents in the schoolyard. “Sewage water is leaking onto the corridors and common areas, and tents are spread everywhere.”

She pointed out that “people arrive at crowded shelters or hospitals with wounds that have not been treated for several days; “This causes life-threatening complications and infections.”

She concluded by saying: “People suffer from different types of injuries resulting from direct strikes or building collapses… I saw many severely injured children, suffering from fractures and burns. “A lot of times, there are entire families that are really hurt… It’s a time bomb with poor hygiene conditions, lack of health care.”