- According to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, in the nearly two years since the war began, some 40,500 children have suffered “new war-related trauma.”
- “Reports also spoke of people with disabilities being forced to flee in unsafe and humiliating conditions.”
GENEVA: At least 21,000 children have been left disabled in the Gaza Strip since the war between Israel and Hamas began on October 7, 2023, according to a UN committee released on Wednesday.
According to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, in the nearly two years since the war began, some 40,500 children have suffered “new war-related trauma,” with more than half of them left disabled.
Looking at the situation in the Palestinian territories, the document said Israeli evacuation orders during the army’s offensive in the Gaza Strip were “often inaccessible” to people with hearing or visual impairments, “making evacuation impossible.”
“Reports also described people with disabilities being forced to flee in unsafe and humiliating conditions, such as crawling in sand or mud without assistance to move,” the report said.
Meanwhile, the committee said restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip disproportionately impact people with disabilities.
“People with disabilities have experienced severe disruptions to aid, leaving many without food, clean water and sanitation and dependent on others to survive,” the statement said.
While the private Gaza Humanitarian Fund, backed by the US and Israel, has four distribution points across the territory, the UN system it largely replaced had about 400 points.
Physical obstacles such as war debris and lost means of transport under rubble further impede people’s ability to reach displaced aid points.
The committee said 83 per cent of people with disabilities had lost their assistive devices, and most could not afford alternatives such as donkey carts.
The document expresses concern that equipment such as wheelchairs, walkers, canes, splints and prostheses are considered “dual-use items” by the Israeli authorities and are therefore not included in humanitarian aid supplies.
The committee called for “massive humanitarian assistance to persons with disabilities” affected by the war, while insisting that all parties must take measures to protect persons with disabilities to prevent “further violence, harm, death and deprivation of rights.”
The committee said at least 157,114 people were reported injured between October 7, 2023 and August 21 this year, of whom more than 25 per cent were at risk of lifelong impairment.
It says that “there are at least 21,000 children in Gaza with disabilities resulting from violations received since 7 October 2023.”
The statement said Israel must take specific measures to protect children with disabilities from attacks and implement evacuation protocols that take into account the needs of persons with disabilities.
Israel must ensure that disabled people “are allowed to return to their homes safely and are provided with assistance to do so,” the government added.