Gaza: Explosive weapons left 15 children a day with potentially lifelong disabilities in 2024. January 14, 2025. Reliefweb. Key Points.

Detailed points highlighting the humanitarian crisis affecting children in Gaza due to explosive weapons in 2024 and early 2025:

Impact on Children’s Health and Disabilities

Injury and Disability Statistics:

On average, 475 children per month (15 per day) sustained injuries leading to potential lifelong disabilities in 2024.

At least 5,230 children required significant rehabilitation support that was inaccessible due to the ongoing conflict.

Injuries include loss of limbs, hearing impairments, and vision loss.

Psychological trauma and mental health issues remain pervasive but largely undocumented.

Decimation of Gaza’s Health System:

Gaza’s only limb reconstruction and rehabilitation center ceased functioning in December 2023.

Medical facilities suffer from severe shortages of staff, medical supplies, and equipment due to restrictions on aid entry.

Treatment for complex injuries and prosthetic adjustments for growing children is currently impossible in Gaza.

Key Challenges to Treatment and Rehabilitation

Unhealed Wounds Due to Malnutrition:

Malnourished children face severe complications in wound healing, leading to increased amputations.

Inaccessible Specialist Care:

Regular prosthetic reviews needed every six months are unattainable.

Children requiring long-term orthopedic care risk crippling secondary health problems, such as osteoarthritis and spinal deformities.

Real-life Stories

Ahmad’s Story:

A five-year-old boy lost his father and one arm when a shelter school was bombed.

Ahmad expressed his grief by asking for a clay arm and a clay "Baba" (father) during a counseling session.

He was one of the few children evacuated to Egypt for treatment, but thousands of others remain trapped without care.

Medical Experts’ Perspectives

Dr. Ana Jeelani emphasized that injuries to growing bones result in permanent growth cessation and deformities.

Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah reported that many babies have suffered amputations before learning to walk, affecting developmental milestones and coordination.

Long-Term Health Implications

Children who lost limbs face risks of:

Joint replacements in their 20s or 30s due to disproportionate pressure on healthy joints.

Early osteoarthritis and spinal deformities.

Mental Health Crisis

Children experience severe emotional trauma from witnessing violence and losing loved ones.

Access to mental health services is limited despite the growing need for psychological support.

International and Humanitarian Response

Save the Children’s Efforts:

Active in Gaza since 1953, providing vital aid, including food, water, hygiene kits, and winter supplies.

Reached over 1 million people across 50 locations in Gaza.

Delivered child-friendly spaces, mental health programming, and malnutrition treatment.

Calls for Action:

Ceasefire and unrestricted humanitarian aid access are urgently needed.

Governments supplying weapons must be held accountable under international law.

World Health Organization (WHO):

Reports that 22,500 people in Gaza have life-changing injuries requiring long-term rehabilitation.

Existing chronic conditions worsen due to collapsed healthcare services.

Legal and Human Rights Considerations

The International Court of Justice warns of a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza.

Save the Children urges the lifting of restrictions on aid and an immediate end to violence affecting children.

Conclusion

The compounded effects of war injuries, health system collapse, and mental trauma threaten the future of Palestinian society. Urgent, sustained international intervention is critical to preventing further humanitarian catastrophe.

Source:

https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/gaza-explosive-weapons-left-15-children-day-potentially-lifelong-disabilities-2024

Comments

Return to the Killing Fields: When Arab Silence Becomes Complicity

In March 2025 , a flicker of hope broke through Gaza’s smoke-choked skies . Seventeen Palestinian children— each a living testimony to horror —were evacuated from the rubble of their homes and transported to Jordan for medical care. Some arrived with legs blown off at the thigh , tiny bodies bandaged like mummies. One boy, no older than ten , had both arms amputated and his face marked by deep burns —his eyes wide with trauma , silently screaming for comfort . A girl, barely breathing , had shrapnel embedded near her spine and could only speak in whispers —if at all. They came on stretchers , barely conscious , wrapped not in blankets but in sorrow . Their mothers were left behind, many buried under collapsed buildings or lost in the chaos of airstrikes. These children were not just patients— they were war’s rawest wounds, symbols of a people being systematically erased. And then, the unthinkable happened. These same children —these shattered, fragile souls—have now be...

The Hunger Crisis in Gaza: A Deadly Cycle of Starvation, Suffering, and Refeeding Syndrome

As the siege on Gaza continues to devastate millions, the world watches as a catastrophe unfolds — one of the most heart-wrenching humanitarian crises in recent history . The simple act of eating has become a life-or-death decision for thousands of Gazans, as they struggle to survive on dwindling supplies of food and water. The situation is dire. According to recent reports from The New York Times , nearly 91% of Gaza's population is now facing “food insecurity,” with many enduring “emergency” or “catastrophic” levels of hunger. Bakeries have shut down , and charity kitchens are overcrowded as people wait for a meager meal. The UN has raised alarms that Gaza may already be on the brink of famine , with children showing the visible signs of malnutrition — emaciated bodies, hollow eyes, and weakened immune systems. But the horror doesn’t end with hunger. As Gaza’s population survives on less and less, the collapse of the healthcare system has created a terrifying new danger:...

She Stitched Wounds With Empty Hands—And Lost All Nine of Her Children

In Gaza, where the sun rises over ash and broken concrete, where lullabies are drowned by the sound of drones, lived a woman whose hands brought healing to children even as the world around her collapsed. Her name was Dr. Alaa — a pediatrician , a mother , a lifeline in the middle of hell. And she has become a symbol of both the highest form of love and the deepest human suffering. Nine children. All hers. All dead. Killed in a single Israeli airstrike. Not soldiers . Not fighters . Just children — tucked beneath blankets, seeking safety that never came. She was saving children in the hospital when her entire world was bombed out of existence. “ Mama, when will this end?” Her youngest had asked her this just days before the strike . He was five . He used to draw little suns on the wall with crayons , yellow and smiling — a child who believed light could still live here. One of the child of Dr. Alaa. Dr. Alaa hadn’t answered. Because she didn’t know. She hadn’t...

The Awakening of the Willfully Asleep: Western Media’s Sudden Gaza Epiphany

After nearly nineteen months of Israeli war crimes in Gaza—flattened hospitals, mass graves of children, obliterated families—the Western editorial boards have suddenly found their voices . Not journalists, not lone columnists, but the actual institutions . Congratulations to The Guardian , The Economist , Financial Times , and The Independent : the horror finally got too loud to ignore . Or maybe the PR risk finally outweighed the political obedience. Let’s be very clear: this isn’t conscience speaking —this is survival instinct . These media giants aren't waking up because of a sudden moral revelation ; they’re waking up because they smell something worse coming. Something catastrophic enough that silence will no longer offer plausible deniability. They know their blatant neutrality , their brutal silence , and their thinly veiled complicity will soon look monstrous under the light of historical reckoning . They're not opposing genocide because it shocks them . They’re...

Trump’s Gaza Plan and the Arab Autocrats: Displacement, Deals, and Betrayal

The Trump administration’s reported plan to forcibly relocate up to 1 million Palestinians from Gaza to Libya or Syria is more than a policy proposal—it is a geopolitical earthquake. It signals a dangerous shift toward normalizing permanent ethnic displacement under the guise of reconstruction. 1. What Is Trump’s Gaza “Solution”? Mass Deportation : Trump argues that Gaza is no longer livable and suggests relocating its population permanently—starting with Libya and possibly post-Assad Syria. Bribing the Host : Libya would receive access to billions in frozen funds in exchange for hosting Palestinians. Buying Consent : Trump suggests offering Palestinians housing and stipends to “incentivize” their exile. Fantasy Development : He wants to rebuild Gaza as the “Riviera of the Middle East”—without its native population. This plan, if implemented, would be a modern-day Nakba , violating international law and the principle of the right to return. 2. Why Are Arab Autocracies Qu...

Ainnbeen

Search This Blog