Ten children per day are losing one or both of their legs in the war in Gaza, the head of the UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees said Tuesday. “Basically we have every day 10 children who are losing one leg or two legs on average,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told reporters in Geneva. Citing figures from the UN children’s agency UNICEF, he said that number “does not even include the arms and the hands, and we have many more” of these. “Ten per day, that means around 2,000 children after the more than 260 days of this brutal war,” Lazzarini said. He said amputation often takes place “in quite horrible conditions, and sometimes without anaesthesia”. Children in Gaza today are paying a “high price”, Lazzarini said. He pointed to findings published by Save the Children on Monday that up to 21,000 children are estimated to be missing in the chaos of the war in Gaza. At least 17,000 children are believed to be unaccompanied and separated, while around 4,000 are likely missing under the rubble and an unknown number are believed to be in mass graves, the report said.
