Gaza: Horror after horror
One in six children– 468 million — in the world live in a conflict zone; 96 million of them live in high intensity conflict areas, such as Gaza. These fcts, and more, are also noted by Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah in his book Reconstructing the War Injured Patient.
Dr Abu-Sittah is a British Palestinian plastic-and-reconstructive surgeon who has worked in Gaza’s two major hospitals for 43 consecutive days just after 7 Oct. 2023. He was operating, day and night through Israel’s massive bombings, missile strikes, drone attacks, and targeted building collapses.
In the three months after the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, Israel dropped 25,000 Tonnes of explosives or 12,000 bombs on Gaza– the equivalent of two nuclear bombs. Often Dr Abu-Sittah had to perform six amputations a day. More than 1,000 children in Gaza who have one or both legs missing, Dr Abu-Sittah says are “the biggest cohort of pediatric amputees in history.” On average, ten children every day lose one or both legs. There are no up-to-date figures – but the 1,000 could well have doubled since the turn of 2024 due to Israel’s dedicated terrorist bombings of residences and apartment buildings, sending missiles into civilian-populated areas, and blowing up hospitals and schools once used as shelters.
Today, according to the World Health Organization, only 30% of medics are available to operate due to killings, detention and displacement by Israeli forces . Just moving between the shelters and the remnants of the hospital, medics risk being killed or injured by Israeli sharpshooters or by Israeli missiles. Medical experts are in despair. As Dr Abu-Sittah pointed out, “The Israelis had surrounded the blood bank so we couldn’t do the transfusions. If a limb was bleeding profusely, we had to amputate.”
Few of the childrens’ wounded limbs can actually be saved, so infection sets in. For example, wounds from shrapnel become gangrenous quickly; patients as young as one and two years of age have to have their limbs amputated.
It is almost a never-ending wait for prostheses; supply is the main problem since Israel routinely will not allow medical supplies into Gaza. The CBC reports that Israel also does not permit antibiotics, sedatives and painkillers.
There is no pain medication during the the amputations and other surgeries, and no pain medication post-surgery. Commenting on the amputation surgeries, orthopedic surgeon Dr Deirdre Nunan, a Canadian from Lanigan, SK, has said, “The degree of pain, post-operatively would be almost unimaginable.” Dr Nunan works with Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) and has previously worked with amputees in Gaza.
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Without proper anaesthetics, doctors have become experts in trying to distract young patients (God knows how) so they can perform the life altering surgeries. Some children seriously injured or without limbs are prioritised and sent with their mothers (or a family member) to Doha, Qatar for surgery and after-care.
Gazal was wounded on November 10th, when, as her family fled Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital, shrapnel pierced her left calf. To stop the bleeding, a doctor, who had no access to antiseptic or anesthesia, heated the blade of a kitchen knife and cauterized the wound. Within days, the gash ran with pus and began to smell. By mid-December, when Gazal’s family arrived at Nasser Medical Center—then Gaza’s largest functioning health-care facility—gangrene had set in, necessitating amputation at the hip. On December 17th, a projectile hit the children’s ward of Nasser.
Gazal and her mother managed to survive, though the girl in the next bed was killed. (NYT)
Although precise data is unavailable, a significant proportion of the 75,000 people whom the Gaza Health Ministry says have been injured since 7 Oct. require prosthetic limbs.
Humanity & Inclusion (HI), also known as Handicap International, has reported that 70 to 80 per cent of those being admitted to the 12 (out of 36) hospitals in Gaza still partially functioning have lost limbs or suffered spinal cord injuries.
Many of the 10,000 people it has assessed have had to undergo amputations, including hundreds of children.
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Reham Shaheen, HI’s rehabilitation expert, said: “The numbers are huge. It is due to the type of weapons used.” Drone-fired missiles result in major amputations in almost all victims who were struck.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) co-ordinator Marie-Aure Perreaut Revial witnessed the horrifying sight of scores of children having their limbs amputated in the al-Aqsa hospital in the last week of March.
“It is completely devastating to see,” she said. “Babies as young as one year old are being amputated. These are babies that have never learned to walk, and now they never will walk [unaided].
“I saw many patients who arrived at the hospital who had already lost their legs and their arms. And then there were others badly injured in a blast who had to be amputated because the lack of access to healthcare and post-operative care means their wounds will otherwise be infected.”
Aseel Baidoun, Director Advocacy and Campaigns for Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) pointed out that the plight of amputees is hindered by their inability to escape when the next wave of attacks comes. This is different from what happens in most wars – like Vietnam, or Syria, or Afghanistan. In Gaza, there is no place to go, Palestinians are hemmed into a small space, with nowhere to flee.
The noose is still tightening in Gaza – every day worse than the next. Like a crazed army of outlaws, or serial killers, Israel has given the green light to any and all atrocities in Gaza (and pretty well also in the West Bank). Every time the countries in the white, European world dare to say no to the state of Israel – it is the Palestinians who pay the price. Yesterday, Spain, Ireland and Norway said they would formally recognise the State of Palestine on 28 May. In retaliation, the Israeli military gave permission for hundreds of settlers to return to three former West Bank settlements which were vacated in 2005. These three settlements are close to Jenin and Nablus – strongholds of armed resistance to Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinians’ land.
Israel: “the country that wouldn’t grow up”
The well-respected historian, Tony Judt, 18 years ago – on the occasion of Israel’s 58th “birthday” — wrote that Israel is the country that wouldn’t grow up.
“Seen from the outside, Israel still comports itself like an adolescent: consumed by a brittle confidence in its own uniqueness; certain that no one “understands” it and everyone is “against” it; full of wounded self-esteem, quick to take offense and quick to give it. Like many adolescents Israel is convinced – and makes a point of aggressively and repeatedly asserting – that it can do as it wishes, that its actions carry no consequences and that it is immortal.”
Judt died in 2010, but I wonder what he would make of the outrageous situation today– nearly twenty years after he wrote the piece.
Feature photo at the top: taken by American surgeon Dr Sam Attar, a professor at Northwestern University School of Medicine, who was a volunteer at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza. When he was preparing to enter the operating room, he was called over by the mother in this photo. She asked him to photograph her young son, Karam, in his bed in the I.C.U. Sam went over and only then realized that the boy was dead. Dr Attar recalled, “Every time staff wanted to cover him fully with a blanket, she would flip it back and say, ‘No!’ And she would start talking to him, asking him where he went.” 4 May, 2024. (photo credit Dr Sam Attar, “One Photo That Covers the Loss in Gaza” in The New York Times)
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