Gaza has most child amputees per capita globally

The United Nations said yesterday that Gaza now has the highest number of child amputees per capita in the world, after more than a year of Israeli offensive in the Palestinian enclave.

“Gaza now has the highest number of children amputees per capita anywhere in the world —- many losing limbs and undergoing surgeries without even anaesthesia,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in remarks read out by his deputy at a Cairo conference aimed to accelerate humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.

“The catastrophe in Gaza is nothing short of a complete breakdown of our common humanity. The nightmare must stop. We cannot continue to look away,” he added.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces bombarded houses in overnight attacks in the northern Gaza Strip, killing at least 15 people in one of the buildings in the town of Beit Lahiya, Palestinian medics said yesterday.

Several others were wounded in the attack and others were missing after a house providing shelter to displaced people was struck, with rescue workers unable immediately to reach them, the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said.

The three barely operational hospitals in the area were unable to cope with the number of wounded, they added.

Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 44,466 people and displaced most of the population, Gaza officials say. Vast swathes of the enclave lie in ruins.

An official close to Gaza ceasefire talks said progress had been made but no final deal had been reached. Israel’s approval would be decisive in determining whether the committee could fulfill its role.

Egypt has proposed that a committee made up of non-partisan technocrat figures, and supervised by Abbas’s authority, should be ready to run Gaza straight after the offensive ends. Israel has said Hamas should have no role in governance.

Egyptian security officials have also held talks with Hamas on ways to reach a ceasefire with Israel.

A Palestinian official close to the mediation effort told Reuters Hamas stood by its condition that any agreement must bring an end to the offensive and involve an Israeli troop withdrawal out, but would show the flexibility needed to achieve that.

Israel has said the offensive will end only when Hamas no longer governs Gaza and poses no threat to Israelis.