According to the president of the UN organization that aids Palestinian refugees, ten children a day are losing one or both of their legs as a result of the fighting in Gaza.
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, told reporters in Geneva, “basically we have every day 10 children who are losing one leg or two legs on average.”
He added the number “does not even include the arms and the hands, and we have many more” of these, citing data from the UN organization for children.
“Ten per day, that means around 2,000 children after the more than 260 days of this brutal war,” Lazzarini said.
According to him, amputations frequently occur “under quite horrible conditions,” occasionally even without anesthetic.
According to Save the Children, up to 21,000 children are thought to be missing amid the chaos of the conflict as of Monday.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, Israel’s counteroffensive in response to Hamas’s October 7 strike on southern Israel has resulted in at least 37,658 deaths.
1,195 people died as a result of that strike, the majority of them were civilians, according to an AFP count based on Israeli government statistics.
Palestinian militants also took 251 people hostage in the attack, 116 of whom remain captive in the Gaza Strip, according to Israel. The army says 42 of those are dead.
UNRWA coordinates nearly all aid to Gaza, but Lazzarini warned the agency was facing relentless attack and a deep funding crisis.
“We have cash until end of August,” he said Tuesday, adding that the agency still had “a shortfall of about $140 million… to bridge the end of the year”.
