War in Gaza has created hundreds of child amputees. We met one who says he just wants his life back | CBC News
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UNICEF has estimated that more than 1,000 children in Gaza have had one or both of their legs amputated since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas. CBC recently met one 12-year-old amputee who said his injury has robbed him of the friendships and fun he used to have before the war and made him an outcast.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/13712503

Desperate state of health system means unnecessary amputations being done on kids as young as 1, surgeon says

Before the war started in Gaza, Moustafa Ahmed Shehda would run around and play with his friends. Now, the 12-year-old is one of a growing number of Palestinians in the territory who’ve lost a limb in a bombing.

Moustafa is from Jabalia in northern Gaza, which has been hit particularly hard in the fighting. Early on in the war between Israel and Hamas, he was visiting his uncle when the apartment building was bombed.

“I was under the rubble. I couldn’t feel anything. I couldn’t breathe,” Moustafa told Mohamed El Saife, a freelance journalist in Gaza working for CBC News.

His uncle was killed, and Moustafa was pulled from the rubble. Because of the extent of his injuries, his right leg had to later be amputated below the knee.

“Before the war, I used to play with my friends,” he said. “I can’t play because of my injury. I can’t play, and I don’t have friends, and I don’t have anything.”

Palestinian health officials said on Saturday that 26,257 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel began bombing the small enclave of 2.3 million people in retaliation for the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel by Hamas-led militants while nearly 65,000 have been wounded.

  • fiat_lux@kbin.social
    71·
    11 months ago

    “Before the war, I used to play with my friends,” he said. “I can’t play because of my injury. I can’t play, and I don’t have friends, and I don’t have anything.”

    Acquired disability is a problem that will exponentially increase with climate change and industrial pollution. Wildfires create smoke that triggers heart and lung problems. War creates amputations and trauma. Drought increases food prices and creates malnutrition. Floods spread malaria and infection and other poisons. The stress on the body from any of those can in turn trigger other underlying health conditions and other genetic inefficiencies.

    If we don’t stop spending all our resources on killing each other and start spending them on helping each other, more people won’t have anything. Just like this 12 year old child.