Skip to content Skip to footer

Gaza Has Highest Number of Child Amputees Per Capita in the World, UN Says

Many children are undergoing amputation procedures without anesthesia, UNRWA said.

A Palestinian child from Gaza is pictured at a temporary housing compound in Doha, Qatar, on April 12, 2024.

Gaza now has the largest population of child amputees per capita in the world, the UN has reported, as a result of 14 months of Israel’s genocide, which has especially targeted children in relentless bombings and attacks.

Israel’s genocide in Gaza has “caused an epidemic of traumatic injuries with no rehabilitation services available,” the head of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) Philippe Lazzarini said on Tuesday. “Now, Gaza has the highest number of child amputees per capita in the world — many losing limbs and undergoing surgeries without even anesthesia,” Lazzarini said.

He added that, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), 1 in 4 people injured in Gaza have life-changing injuries that will require long-term care for years to come. According to official estimates by Gaza health officials, Israel’s attacks have injured at least 105,000 Palestinians so far, meaning that it’s likely that tens of thousands of people have sustained life-changing injuries.

Israeli forces have especially targeted children in their genocide, landing Israel on the UN’s list of international violators of children’s rights earlier this year.

According to a report published by the UN Human Rights Office last month, children make up the single largest group of people killed by Israel, with children between 0 and 14 years old being the most represented age groups among verified deaths.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor found, separately, in August that Israeli forces have killed at least 2,100 babies and toddlers between 0 and 2 years of age in the first 10 months of Israel’s genocide. Doctors who have gone to Gaza on service trips have said that they constantly saw children shot in the head during their time in Gaza’s crumbling health facilities.

UNRWA has estimated that at least 10 children in Gaza are losing one or both legs per day in Israel’s attacks. This estimate doesn’t include children losing arms or hands, so the true number of children losing limbs each day is likely higher.

Israel’s systematic destruction of Gaza’s health care system has made it so that children needing medical treatment have little to no options for care.

Médecins Sans Frontières said last month that Gaza’s formerly robust health care system “no longer exists due to the bombardment of health facilities by Israeli forces, dire shortages of vital supplies, and evacuation orders forcing patients and staff into life-threatening situations.” As of last month, only 17 out of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are left functioning, with none of them fully operational.

In north Gaza, health care is almost nonexistent due to Israel’s blockade of medical supplies, raids of the hospitals there, and detainment of medical staff.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said that the Biden administration is to blame for the dire increase in child amputees in Gaza.“History will hold President Biden and his administration’s officials responsible for enabling the Israeli genocide in Gaza,” CAIR National Director Nihad Awad said in a statement. “For more than a year, he has remained unmoved by the far-right Israeli government’s systematic campaign of slaughter, ethnic cleansing, forced starvation, and mass destruction that he unfortunately supported and excused.”

We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.

As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.

Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.

As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.

At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.

Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.

You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.