Israeli blockade prevents access to vital care for Gaza's amputees

"My life is worse than before the war," Omar Halawa, a Palestinian child amputee from Gaza told Middle East Eye. "Everything I used to do, I can't do anymore," the young boy said, who was injured after an Israeli tank shelled him and his cousins while they were fetching water for their family. His cousins were killed, but he survived. Omar, like thousands of other Palestinian amputees, is waiting to receive rehabilitation treatment and a prosthetic limb, which may not come due to Israel's blockade on Gaza. Israeli authorities have prevented prosthetics and materials from entering the besieged enclave, which has compounded the existing crisis caused by the destruction of hospitals during its genocidal war, preventing Palestinians from accessing critical healthcare services.