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On a crutch he never imagined he would lean on, or that it would be a substitute for his amputated leg, Palestinian Tawfiq Al-Sheikh, 51, walks heavily between the corridors of Hamad Hospital in the town of Al-Zawaida in the central Gaza Strip, hoping that the hospital will fulfilhis dream of returning his life to what it was before the Israeli aggression. However, fulfilling his hope remains relative to the replacement of his natural leg with an artificial one that helps him with the worries of life.
“I was living a normal life before the Israeli war on Gaza,” Al-Sheikh said, touching his amputated foot during his visit to the hospital. “I was injured in a bombing that targeted the street where I live in Gaza at the beginning of the war, and my foot was amputated above the knee. I underwent a period of treatment in a hospital, and then I was transferred to Hamad Hospital to have the prosthetic limb fitted so that I could rely on it to facilitate my life and work.”
He added in his interview with the Qatar News Agency (QNA), “The installation of my prosthetic limb at Hamad Hospital allows me to resume my life normally, even if only relatively. It is true that I and other wounded people who have had limbs amputated suffer a lot, but I have regained some hope since the hospital was able to install the prosthetic limb, through which I was able to walk and resume my life.”
Al-Sheikh expresses his gratitude to the hospital administration and the State of Qatar, which sponsors him, for their services to amputees, saying: “I and others felt the care and attention from the beginning of the physical therapy stage until the fitting of the limb, which made a change in my life from a person suffering from a disability and needing special care, to a person who carries out his life and tasks in society in an almost normal way.”
Hamad Hospital for Rehabilitation and Prosthetics, one of the most prominent institutions specializing in rehabilitation and prosthetics in the sector, was established in northern Gaza in 2019 with funding and support from the Qatar Fund for Development. It provides its services completely free of charge to wounded and injured Palestinians who need medical services in the fields of amputation, neurological injuries, spinal injuries, and other specialties.
Last May, the hospital was subjected to Israeli artillery shelling that caused serious material damage to the building, and its medical services were disrupted, and it went out of service completely.
Last October, the hospital administration announced the opening of a new branch in the southern Gaza Strip, as part of expanding the provision of medical and rehabilitation services and ensuring that the wounded and people with various disabilities receive the required care.
In this context, Ahmed Al-Absi, head of the prosthetics department at Hamad Hospital, says that the department provides many services, including, most importantly, prosthetics, assistive devices, and spinal correction devices.
He explained that last March, the department was reopened after repairing the damage it sustained due to Israeli bombing and targeting during the aggression. It received difficult cases suffering from amputations, in light of the large numbers of injured and wounded people suffering from limb amputations due to Israeli bombing and the use of deadly missiles.
Al-Absi explained that amputation cases have begun to flock to Hamad Hospital to obtain prosthetic limb services and begin the rehabilitation phase for them in the prosthetic limb department. He pointed out that since the department resumed operations, it has provided approximately 100 prosthetic limbs for amputation cases, especially complex cases suffering from above-knee amputations or double amputations, where treatment begins with the cases from the rehabilitation phase on these limbs.
Ahmed Al-Absi, head of the prosthetics department at Hamad Hospital, explains: "Since its establishment, the department has provided services to more than 5,000 cases up to the end of 2023, with an annual average of 120 to 150 prosthetic limbs. Despite the difficulties and shortages of materials, we resumed operations last March, and we are now providing services to thousands of amputees due to the aggression. We are currently monitoring approximately 135 amputee cases requiring prosthetic limbs."
He clarifies that many of these cases require reintegration into society. When an amputee begins rehabilitation with a prosthetic limb, the recovery phase begins, along with the phase of social integration. We have witnessed many cases where individuals recovered after receiving prosthetics and returned to their communities, including students who went back to school and employees who resumed their jobs.
He explained that the prosthetic limbs provided by Hamad Hospital are of high quality and greatly assist patients in integrating, living, and participating in society. He noted numerous success stories among patients who have received prosthetic limbs. However, he also pointed to the many obstacles and challenges facing the hospital's work in the field of prosthetics, most notably the severe shortage of materials for prosthetics and related fittings, which prevents the occupation from entering the Gaza Strip.
He stated, "There is a critical shortage of these materials. No materials related to prosthetics have entered the Gaza Strip since 2023, and therefore, we are facing significant problems in providing prosthetic services. In a month or two at most, our stock of prosthetic materials will run out."
Al-Absi called on the relevant authorities to provide prosthetic limbs and the necessary materials for their manufacture so that the hospital can provide prosthetics to all segments of the population, especially given the very high number of amputations in the Gaza Strip due to the aggression and war over the past two years.
In the same context, Dr Maher Shamia, Assistant Undersecretary at the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, stated that the number of amputations recorded by the ministry during the Israeli aggression reached approximately 6,000 cases, most of which are in dire need of urgent and long-term rehabilitation programs to help them adapt to their health conditions.
In an interview with the Qatar News Agency (QNA), he explained that the Gaza Strip now has the highest rate of limb amputations among children relative to its population in the world, according to a report published by the World Health Organization (WHO) in early October.
He pointed out that children constitute about 25 percent of all amputation cases, while women account for 12.7 percent, reflecting the scale of human suffering endured by thousands of wounded individuals and their families.
The Undersecretary of the Ministry of Health emphasized that these figures highlight the urgent need for rehabilitation services and psychosocial support, especially for children who have found themselves facing permanent disabilities at a young age. He called on all international and humanitarian organizations and institutions working in the fields of health and rehabilitation to intensify their efforts and expand their urgent interventions to meet the needs of the wounded and enable them to receive the necessary care commensurate with the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in the Gaza Strip.
The Gaza Strip is experiencing a humanitarian tragedy following the end of the Israeli aggression, which left more than 170,000 wounded and injured, amid a near-total collapse of the health system, a lack of medicines and medical supplies, the destruction of hospitals, and the occupation’s refusal to operate the Rafah land crossing in accordance with the ceasefire agreement, to allow the wounded to leave for treatment outside the Strip.
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