GAZA: Explosive Weapons Left 15 Children A Day With Potentially Lifelong Disabilities In 2024

The use of explosive weapons in Gaza in 2024 condemned an average of 475 children each month - or 15 children a day [1]- to potentially lifelong disabilities, including severely injured limbs and hearing impairments, said Save the Children.

The estimated figure comes from Save the Children analysis of a report by the Gaza Protection Cluster - a group of humanitarian organisations including Save the Children - which shows that in the first 11 months of 2024, at least 5,230 children sustained injuries requiring significant rehabilitation support that is inaccessible due to attacks on hospitals and healthcare workers by Israeli forces and restrictions on entry of critical supplies, leaving them with a high likelihood of disability [2].

These estimates are likely low and may not capture all children left with hearing or visual impairments due to war-related injuries. They also do not capture children suffering potentially lifelong psychological injuries as a result of traumatic incidents they have witnessed or experienced during the war.

These injuries - which include loss of limbs, sight and hearing - have been worsened due to the decimation of the health system and destruction of health facilities in Gaza, as well as the restricted flow and low availability of medicines, which has made treatment, therapeutic or rehabilitative care inside Gaza near impossible.

Gaza’s only limb reconstruction and rehabilitation centre has been non-functional since December 2023 due to lack of supplies and staff and was further damaged in a February 2024 raid.

Children who have lost legs require long-term specialist care as they grow, with regular reviews of appropriate prosthetics and other treatments - sometimes as much as every six months. These treatments are currently impossible to receive in Gaza.

Dr. Ana Jeelani, an orthopedic surgeon with Save the Children’s partner organisation Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) [3], said: "When you treat children with injuries, they have growing bones, so if you have an injury to the growing part of your bone, then that part will stop growing."

" Wounds are not healing due to increased levels of malnutrition - we’re basically trying to stitch back wounds that won’t heal. Children are heading to amputations because bones are not healing, limbs fixed but not functional because of the gravity of the situation."

Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a surgeon with expertise in treating blast injuries in children who spent 45 days in Gaza between October-November 2023 operating at Al Ahli hospital [4], said: "Gaza is redefining war injuries. I saw many babies who suffered amputations before learning to walk, which will affect their development as their brain hasn’t picked up proper reception and eye-hand coordination yet.

"Thousands of children now need prosthetics, and they are likely to develop issues on the opposite limb. They may get early osteoarthritis in the hip joint and the knee joint. Or they may get deformity of the back. By their 20s or 30s they may need joint replacements, something people normally get in their 70s and 80s, because of the disproportionate pressure put on the normal joint."

A counsellor from a partner organisation in Gaza, which provides mental health support services to children who have been injured during the war [4] said: " One of the children we supported is Ahmad-, a five-year-old who was displaced with his family in a school-turned-shelter. When the school was hit, Ahmad lost his father and one arm. During a counselling session we were playing together with clay, and Ahmad asked me to make him a new arm with the clay. I told him that hopefully when he travels out of Gaza, he will get a new arm. So, he gave me the piece of clay and told me to make him a new ‘Baba’ [dad]." [5]

Alexandra Saieh, Global Head of Humanitarian Policy and Advocacy at Save the Children, said:

"In Gaza, childhoods have been replaced by pain and trauma, while the means to effectively treat and support children have been systematically eradicated. Their survival is being thwarted at every turn, as is our ability to provide the critical care they need.

"The scale and severity of this physical and mental harm not only dashes individual lives but threatens both the fabric and the future of Palestinian society for generations to come. To safeguard these futures and prevent further irreparable damage, immediate action from the international community is urgently needed. Every day, every delay, risks further undermining Palestinian children’s increasingly fragile futures."

In September 2024, the World Health Organization said that more than 22,500 people in Gaza had life-changing injuries, requiring rehabilitation services "now and for years to come". Beyond the newly injured, WHO said tens of thousands of Palestinians already living with chronic conditions or impairments are now at heightened risk due to the collapse of critical services.

Save the Children continues to call for a definitive ceasefire and for all states supplying weapons, parts and ammunitions that risk being used in the commission of international crimes in Gaza. Save the Children also calls on the Government of Israel to lift all restrictions impeding aid delivery.

The International Court of Justice has observed that there is a plausible risk of genocide being committed, and has ordered Israel to desist from the commission of any and all acts within the scope of the Genocide Convention.

Save the Children has been providing essential services and support to Palestinian children since 1953 and has had a permanent presence in the occupied Palestinian territory since 1973. We are present in the West Bank and Gaza.

Save the Children and its partners have reached over 1 million people in Gaza across 50 locations, with vital supplies including drinking water, food, hygiene products, mattresses, blankets, learning materials, toys, and games. We have also been providing cash assistance, Child Friendly Spaces, health programming including in acute malnutrition and mental health support, and more. In the past few weeks and months, we have provided thousands of families with food and winter kits including mattresses, blankets, tarpaulins and other shelter items to help families protect themselves from the harsh winter elements.

Notes:

[1] & [2] Save the Children analysed the Protection Cluster Report for the occupied Palestinian territory [November 2024] Material Assistance Shortages: Impact on the Protection Situation in Gaza - occupied Palestinian territory which states: "It is estimated that at least 21,000 children have sustained war-related injuries. Of these, the Health Cluster’s Trauma Working Group estimates that at least 25 per cent (5,230 children) will have injuries requiring significant rehabilitation with a high likelihood of disability." The WHO confirmed to Save the Children separately via email that the time period covered for the data was January - November 2024.

Save the Children averaged the number of severely impacted children (5,230) across the number of months (11) and days (334) from January - November 2024 to reach these figures.

[3] Save the Children supports Medical Aid for Palestinians in Gaza through the provision of medical supplies.

[4] Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah is an honorary senior lecturer at the Centre for Blast Injury Studies, which was launched by Imperial College London and Save the Children in 2023. It is the world's first centre for research dedicated to studying and providing lifesaving innovations to children injured by explosive weapons.

[5] Ahmad- was medically evacuated before Israeli forces took over and closed the Rafah crossing in May 2024. While Ahmad is now in Egypt where he was able to get a prosthetic arm, most children in urgent need of prosthetics and life-saving treatment are unable to leave Gaza.

The UN recently said that children are being medically evacuated from Gaza at a rate of fewer than one child per day, and if this slow pace continues, it will take more than seven years to evacuate the 2,500 children needing urgent medical care.

-Name has been changed to protect anonymity

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