How the war in Gaza is making life almost impossible for people with disabilities – Mother Jones

Abdel Kareem Hana/AP

Last December, UNICEF reported that two and a half months after the start of Israel’s offensive in Gaza, at least a thousand children have lost one or both legs. The more Palestinians become disabled, the greater their risk becomes. A United Nations committee warned in May of “the disproportionate impact on people with disabilities due to the destruction of hospitals, disruption of essential services, restrictions and lack of access to humanitarian assistance” amid the war waged in response to the October 7 Hamas attack.

One organization trying to help disabled Palestinians in Gaza is Humanity & Inclusion, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning international humanitarian organization that has been working in Palestine – both in Gaza and the West Bank – for nearly three decades. Since October, H&I has been providing mobility aids to Palestinians who have recently become disabled.

Their work was insidious – several H&I employees were killed and their office in Gaza City was destroyed. In mid-June, H&I said, the Israel Defense Forces razed their warehouse in Rafah, which had previously stored medical supplies and mattresses. (In response to a request for comment on the destruction of the H&I warehouse, an Israel Defense Forces spokesman did not deny the destruction of the warehouse, but said the IDF “abides by international law.”) The Israeli army has also banned the entry of many medical devices into Gaza, claiming they are “dual-use items” – crutches or hearing aid batteries, for example, can be used for military purposes.

Mother Jones spoke to Noor Bimbashi, Humanity & Inclusion’s West Bank advocacy officer, about the challenges facing people with disabilities in Gaza, the impact of aid restrictions, and how people in the West Bank also experience violence.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Since October, the number of amputees in Gaza has increased, including children who lost limbs during the Israeli offensive. How has this changed the work of Humanity & Inclusion?

The number of amputees was already high in 2022. At least 21 percent of households in Gaza were home to people with disabilities. We keep trying to compare this number with the current situation.

The difficulty in accessing Gaza is affecting our rehabilitation services. We need more resources to maintain the well-being of amputees and people with disabilities. And the lack of electricity and fuel is affecting our work.

One of the challenges my colleagues recently brought to my attention is the fact that our staff have been scattered in different areas of Gaza following the Rafah offensive. Sometimes communication is difficult. The number of people with disabilities and the number of families who need rehabilitation or assistive devices such as wheelchairs or crutches is increasing every day and sometimes it is difficult to keep up. But we are trying our best.

In mid-June, H&I announced that the Israeli army had destroyed a warehouse in Rafah that your organization had previously used. How has the lack of usable storage space affected the services you have been able to provide?

The offensive has forced us to stop all activities for people with disabilities throughout Rafah Governorate. The loss of this warehouse has made it impossible for us to stock goods in Rafah in the short term. And even after the offensive ends, this will cost us a lot of time, which will of course slow down our future assistance to people with disabilities, especially in Rafah.

Even our warehouses in other areas are sometimes too difficult to reach or find, as over 60 percent of the buildings in Gaza are destroyed.

There is a high number of people with disabilities in Palestine, including children with amputations. Have you been able to meet the need for treatment for children who have recently become disabled? What are the obstacles to providing care for these children?

The nurses we work with tell us how difficult it is because they don’t have access to the basic tools to treat patients. One of the nurses told me that one of the biggest challenges is not being able to care for patients because of the displacement. One day they are treating a person with a disability and the next day they can’t find them because they have been ordered to evacuate to another location.

Overcrowding in accommodation makes it difficult to carry out some rehabilitation sessions. But I think the biggest challenge at the moment is displacement and the scarcity of resources.

In Gaza, people with disabilities have lost any chance of education or mental health support. They are the last to be evacuated because some of them, such as the hearing impaired, do not even know that they have to be evacuated.

We keep asking Israel to allow us to import some tools and resources that are considered “dual-use items,” but they are not. That’s why sometimes it’s even difficult to bring wheelchairs, crutches and hearing aids into Gaza because some of them are on the dual-use list. The problem is that we don’t even get the list, so we don’t even know.

To have to Thousands more prostheses in Gaza. How does a delay in obtaining a prosthesis for amputees negatively affect their quality of life?

First, it affects their mental health. We’ve heard of confusion and aggression problems because they don’t get the right treatment. And even minor injuries turn into permanent disabilities. The situation in hospitals is very bad. We hear of people having their legs or arms amputated without anesthesia. It’s devastating. We’re trying our best to find alternatives, but I don’t know what else can be done.

Some children believe that their legs will grow back. This is one of the saddest statements we regularly hear when we talk to children. They tell us we are waiting for our legs to grow back. Sometimes it is difficult to explain that this will not happen.

This is heartbreaking. How has the team in the West Bank, where you are based, supported the K&I members in Gaza?

In the beginning we lost communication. That was really difficult. But now we have more than 40 people working in Gaza and more than 30 in the West Bank. We try to do joint projects. But you know, in the West Bank we are not allowed to enter Gaza.

Our international staff are the ones who have entered Gaza. We send rehabilitation specialists and many relief workers from our headquarters in France and from other places to Gaza to help. Sometimes we pause our movements due to the security situation. After the Rafah offensive, it was difficult to predict what would happen – we don’t want our staff to get stuck.

What challenges have you faced in supporting disabled people in the West Bank since October?

I live there and I can tell you that after October 7, everything got worse. One of the biggest challenges is the restriction of movement. We work not only in Ramallah, but also in Jenin, Nablus and Bethlehem. Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank are the target of raids and attacks on a daily basis. Sometimes we plan a site visit or want to do a needs assessment in a particular refugee camp, but then we can’t do it the next day because a new checkpoint has suddenly been set up, preventing us from going there.

Another challenge is that settler violence has increased dramatically. One of our local partners runs a rehabilitation center in Jenin refugee camp. All the infrastructure around the center has been completely destroyed. I can’t get there on foot or by car. Israeli soldiers are surrounding hospitals and rehabilitation centers and destroying the infrastructure around them. It is becoming increasingly difficult for people with disabilities to continue their treatment or access the services they need.

The situation is bad. We hope for a cessation of hostilities and a ceasefire as soon as possible so that we can continue our work as planned.