Gaza Health Ministry: Genocidal war led to the amputation of 1,000 Palestinian children’s limbs

In one of the children’s rooms at the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, Ahmed Al-Ghalban lies with sunken eyes and a thin body on the verge of collapse under the weight of physical and psychological pain after losing his legs and losing his twin brother, Mohammed, during the genocidal war waged on Gaza.

Al-Ghalban is one of nearly 1,000 children who lost limbs during this war, where children made up more than 35 per cent of the victims, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

Ahmed not only lost his legs, but he also lost a large part of his soul after the devastation of losing his twin brother, Mohammed, who was with him during those difficult moments when they were hit by an Israeli missile while fleeing an attack on their neighbourhood in the northern Gaza Strip.

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Last March, the Al-Shaima neighbourhood in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, was subjected to a series of Israeli attacks. One of these attacks targeted the Al-Ghalban family’s residential area. Ahmed and his brother Mohammed were on their way to a safer shelter after evacuating their home following the Israeli occupation forces designated their area as a “red zone.” They were victims of this violent attack.

Ahmed recounts the details of the attack, saying, “I was holding my brother’s hand, who had never left me. We were in a horse-drawn cart, heading toward a safer area after our neighbourhood had been bombed. We were carrying some household belongings.”

“Suddenly, we became the occupation’s targets. When I woke up in the hospital after losing consciousness, I was surprised to find that my legs had been amputated and also learned that I had lost my brother and uncle. I knew then that my life had changed forever, and that I would be without legs.”

According to the Ministry of Health, despite its cruelty, the story of the brothers Ahmed and Mohammed, is no different from the stories of more than 16,000 children who were martyred and nearly 1,000 children who had their limbs amputated during the aggression.

READ: Gaza’s amputees face life in a war zone with little treatment, and even less hope