Over 1,100 Gaza Child Amputees Face Blocked Prosthetics, Stranded Wheelchairs, Closed Crossings

An 11-year-old boy from Beit Lahia walks on a plastic pipe where his leg used to be. R.Q., identified by Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor only by his initials, lost the limb after a bomb struck his family in Khan Yunis in June, killing his mother and younger brother. He told the organization he wants only to get a prosthetic and play football again.

"All I hope for is to leave for treatment and get a prosthetic limb that will help me walk and return to playing football with my friends," R.Q. said.

He is one of at least 1,134 children Euro-Med Monitor says have undergone limb amputations following Israeli attacks on Gaza, according to a report the organization published Wednesday. Many, it says, cannot access the specialist treatment, prosthetics, and sustained rehabilitation they need.

The report documents other cases. Aya Fawaz Madi described her eight-year-old niece Sila losing both feet after an Israeli shell fragment struck their displacement tent in al-Mawasi, doctors amputating the right foot first, then the left after efforts to save it failed. Fidaa Ahmad Al-Shaer said her 11-year-old son Mousa was paralyzed and had his right hand amputated after an Israeli artillery shell landed near him in Rafah in August 2025 while he tried to collect flour from a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation site. His mother told the organization he now needs surgeries, rehabilitation, a prosthetic limb, and a referral abroad, but closed crossings prevent him from traveling.

Euro-Med Monitor argues that inflicting these injuries and then obstructing their treatment forms part of what it calls the genocide Israel is committing against Palestinians in Gaza, falling under Article II of the Genocide Convention. The claim is the organization's legal assessment, not a court finding. It follows a June report by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which found Israeli authorities and forces had deliberately targeted Palestinian children and identified that targeting as a key element establishing genocidal intent.

Equipment stranded, crossings closed

The report cites a concrete obstruction: more than 900 wheelchairs donated by two Australian charities for wounded children, including amputees, have sat in Jordan since shipments arrived in February and October 2025. The Jordan Hashemite Charity Organisation, which is storing them, said COGAT, the Israeli defence ministry body that controls aid entry into Gaza, rejected the initial February application and left it pending, blocking a new request for the October shipment.

A World Health Organization update published in June, based on assessments through May 2026, found only about 500 of 2,300 amputees assessed since September 2024 had received permanent prosthetics, fewer than one in four. The WHO also found no rehabilitation equipment for health facilities had entered Gaza between May 2024 and mid-April 2026, with 18 shipments of wheelchairs, prosthetic limbs, and other rehabilitation supplies awaiting clearance as of mid-April.

Euro-Med Monitor says restrictions on medical evacuations are preventing hundreds of child amputees from leaving Gaza for care, while shortages of equipment and trained staff undermine what treatment remains available inside the territory.