The World Health Organization (WHO) said that numerous amputations are carried out in the Gaza Strip even though the limbs could be saved.
There are many reasons for this, the WHO representative for the Palestinian Territories, Rik Peeperkorn, and the coordinator of the WHO emergency medical team, Sean Casey, said on Tuesday.
Both spoke to the press in Geneva via a video link from Jerusalem and Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip.
The injured cannot reach hospitals earlier due to the ongoing fighting, said Casey. There is also a lack of specialists, such as vascular surgeons.
Hospitals are overcrowded and operating theatres are used for life-saving operations.
“I have never seen so many amputees in my life, also children,” said Peeperkorn.
Casey reported from Rafah that recent amputees were begging in their beds for food or water.
Aid deliveries were not enough to reach everyone, especially in the northern region “Everybody says they are hungry,” Casey said.
According to Peeperkorn, 15 of the 36 hospitals are currently partially functional. There are also three field hospitals.
The WHO representatives reiterated their demands for a ceasefire, as they have done for weeks, to provide humanitarian care for the population.
Israel has been fighting the militant Palestinian Hamas movement in Gaza since the militant group launched a bloody raid on Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 and kidnapping around 240.
More than 23,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war three months ago, according to the Hamas-controlled health authority.
The WHO said more than 50,000 were injured, some of them seriously.