1000 Palestinian children suffer permanent disabilities

PIC reported:

Defense for Children International - Palestine (DCIP) revealed on Tuesday that over 1,000 children suffered, as a result of Israel's last summer’s aggression on Gaza, injuries that rendered them permanently disabled, according to OCHA.

The Israeli aggression, which lasted 51 days, claimed the lives of 2,220 Palestinians, including at least 1,492 civilians. 3,374 others were injured including 1,000 children who suffered disabilities, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

DCIP independently verified the deaths of 547 Palestinian children among the killed in Gaza, 535 of them as a direct result of Israeli attacks. Nearly 68 percent of the children killed by Israeli forces were 12 years old or younger.

Evidence and testimonies collected by DCIP showed that there was no safe place for children in Gaza during the Israeli assault. Children were killed in their homes by Israeli missiles, while sheltering in schools by high-explosive Israeli artillery shells, and in the streets by Israeli drone-fired missiles and artillery shells as they attempted to escape the onslaught with their families.

Among those cases was a child from Rafah called Ibrahim Abu Shabab, in the sixth grade. He was wounded by shrapnel in his neck and suffered a fracture in the right thigh bone and shrapnel in other parts of the body leaving him in a very critical situation.

His mother said he underwent several surgeries and was absent of his school for three months which affected his educational progress.

Another child named Bilal al-Sherafi, 11, from Gaza city, was injured by shrapnel all over his body due to Israeli missiles. His mother and brother were killed in the Israeli missile attack.

He stayed for a month at hospital because of the seriousness of his condition at the time, then, was transferred alone to be treated in Germany. He spent 10 months there and lost the opportunity to register in the school year of the fifth grade.

A third child, called Thaer Jodeh, 10, from Jabalya, lost his right leg and was injured with shrapnel in his body and suffered laceration to his hands because of Israeli missiles which killed his mother and four of his siblings.

He was also taken to Germany for treatment and spent ten months there. He was given an artificial limb that needs to be changed as the child is growing up.