Disability pandemic in Gaza | - dailyyemen

As the war on the Gaza Strip continues, hundreds of wounded people are suffering from profound psychological and physical trauma after losing limbs due to the ongoing shelling.

A displaced woman from Beit Lahia, northern Gaza, says she lost her leg when a UNRWA shelter was directly bombed. She adds that she has difficulty using crutches and hopes to receive a prosthetic limb.

Mohammed al-Bahri recounts how he was injured on January 13 while searching for food with his friends. “A drone fired a direct missile at us,” he says. “One of my friends was killed, and I was injured while trying to escape.”

The Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, previously announced that the highest percentage of child amputees in the world is in Gaza, and that many of them underwent surgery without anesthesia.

He declared what he called a “disability epidemic” in Gaza, due to the “horrific injury epidemic” caused by the Israeli war of extermination among Palestinians, coupled with the lack of rehabilitation services.