The US funded Israeli military is shooting so many unarmed Palestinians that the UN is warning of an amputation crisis in Gaza.
By Phyllis Bennis | Foreign Policy in Focus | May 22, 2019
…the Trump administration has cut off funding for the very UN refugee agency that staffs health clinics in Gaza, even as it funds the Israeli military that’s filling them with gunshot victims.
My friend Andrew Rubin is an amputee. He’s lost his right hand, lower arm, right foot, and lower leg.
He used to be an avid runner and cyclist. He can’t do much of that anymore, although his walking is getting much better. Soon he might be able to run with his artificial leg.
Andrew is incredibly lucky.
The medical catastrophe that left his hand and foot so terribly damaged didn’t kill him. But when his limbs never healed even after a decade, he decided to undergo the amputations. It was his choice, and it was made much easier because he knew what lay ahead: the most advanced artificial limbs ever imagined. The kids call him Bionic Man now.
Andrew is lucky for another reason: He doesn’t live in Gaza.
According to the United Nations, 1,700 young Gazans are facing amputation, mainly of their legs, in the next two years. They’re among the 7,000 unarmed Palestinians in Gaza shot by Israeli snipers over the last year.
Since last spring, thousands of Palestinians in Israeli-occupied Gaza have poured out of their teeming refugee camps and houses every Friday to join nonviolent protests, demanding an end to the siege that’s destroying their lives, and the right to return to the homes Israel displaced them from.
HolyLandJustice.org 