Since October 2023, it is estimated that over 13,000 children have been killed in Gaza and countless others maimed, creating the largest cohort of child amputees in modern history. Amra Lee, Dr Felicity Gray, and Professor Bina D’Costa argue that these atrocities are a glaring violation of international law, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and urge us, the world watching, to confront our collective failure to protect the most vulnerable and demand accountability. NB: as of publication, a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has been reached.
The statistics are jarring: the largest cohort of child amputees in modern history. An average of 10 children are estimated to lose one or both legs each day, according to the UN.
In October 2024, the Commission of Inquiry for the occupied Palestinian territories reported that since October 2023, 13,319 children had been killed in Gaza, including 786 under the age of one. If indirect deaths are included, from the spread of disease, from starvation and lack of access to health care, this figure is at least four times as high. Children are being registered as WCNSF – Wounded Child No Surviving Family – a term unique to Gaza and the harms inflicted on children there.
People with disabilities fear being killed first
The situation for children and people living with a disability in Gaza has long been difficult, but over 15 months of unrestricted warfare has made it apocalyptic. At least 58,000 persons with disabilities, the majority of them children, women and older persons, were living in Gaza prior to October 2023. The UN panel of experts on Gaza describe the current situation for people with disabilities in Gaza as “a tragedy within a tragedy.” Palestinians with a disability, including the visually and audio impaired, report being unable to receive or respond in time to the multiple evacuation orders issued, and experience much higher risk of injury and death as a result.
People with disabilities have shared their fear of being killed first. The continued bombardment, the obstruction of life-saving aid and the repeated attacks on medical facilities and personnel means injured children are undergoing complex, life-changing surgeries without the necessary medical equipment, pain relief or rehabilitation support. Unsurprisingly, these conditions are having a severe psychological toll on children, which is being exacerbated by the continued war on Gaza and restrictions on humanitarian aid and personnel.
Articles 38 and 39 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) require states to take all feasible measures to protect and care for children affected by armed conflict and support their physical and psychological recovery. Article 11 of the Convention of People with Disabilities further requires states to protect persons with disabilities from harm in situations of armed conflict, with additional protections for children provided under Article 23 of the CRC and international humanitarian law. The international framework is robust and clear. In practice, however, we are witnessing an abdication of these legal responsibilities as those with existing disabilities are neglected and a new generation of children are being killed and maimed with impunity.
For those of us bearing witness on our television screens and mobile phones – are we really expected to accept the continuous killing and maiming of children as the “tragic yet necessary” cost of war? Should we click to the next post, unsettled but detached from the life-altering implications of these violations for the victims, their families and our shared humanity. And how can we, alongside the wider international community, in good faith say we stand by commitments to human rights and humanitarian law without challenging the violent policies and practices driving irreparable harm to children in Palestine and the wider region?
The limited ability to influence these violent policies and practices has further challenged our understanding of what it means to protect civilians. We have heard repeated pleas and calls to respect the rules of war – to provide timely unimpeded humanitarian access, to better protect civilians and the civilian infrastructure critical for their survival. Yet, the practices and conditions for civilians in Gaza continued to deteriorate, with an immediate sustained ceasefire being the only realistic measure to protect people living in Gaza.
Moving beyond “compliance” toward the full protection of civilians
In a recent report the UN Secretary-General calls for working toward the “full protection of civilians”, to strengthen compliance and accountability while expanding our understanding of the “effective legal, policy and operational responses to address it.” We can see the limits of a compliance-only approach to protecting civilians – an approach that, in practice, has been a self-assessment. Assessments that, too often, been manipulated to explain away the death and injury of children and aid workers, as a regrettable yet necessary cost of war.
Impunity for grave violations against civilians including children continues unabated. This is so despite the International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion and more recent International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants for those alleged to be most responsible for these atrocities. While international justice has stepped up, there has been insufficient real-time pressure and influence on the parties and the conduct of hostilities for civilians trapped in Gaza. This impunity has, and is continuing to have, a devastating toll on children, their families and people living with a disability in Gaza, while increasingly threatening the wider region.
Other state and non-state actors are observing this impunity and taking note. As violations mount, an already ajar window of increasing tolerance for civilian harm is being propped open further. Across the Middle East, Sudan, Ukraine and Myanmar, civilians – including children and people with disabilities – are paying the highest price while politicians and commentators orchestrate narratives to justify and “explain away” death. The continued impunity, as well as perceptions and justifications of what will be accepted in Gaza, has increased the threats for civilians everywhere.
Setting aside the ethical and potential legal implications of this conduct domestically, those explaining away death should pause to reflect that the inconsistent application of civilian protection standards undermines the rules-based international order for us all. It reduces the incentives for compliance with international law and signals to other political leaders and armed actors what they can get away with. At this current trajectory, and in the absence of the necessary political will and good faith globally to address the enablers of unrestricted warfare, the destabilising impacts on international peace and security will affect us all.
Pushing back on necessary war, death and disfigurement
But these are not foregone outcomes, nor are we helpless in the face of such challenges. For children in Gaza, for people with disabilities unable to receive warnings or flee, for all civilians vulnerable to having their death and injury justified or explained away, we are compelled to speak up.
Collectively, we have a responsibility to challenge the insidious narratives that normalise unrestricted warfare and the misplaced trust placed in those who amplify them, who recklessly argue more war and more military action as the solution to political problems. Who do so, despite overwhelming evidence that the only durable solution to ending violent conflict is a negotiated political one.
Some may read this with discomfort, unable or unwilling to make the connections. But to strip away the constructed narratives and interests and understand this kind of violence against children and people with disabilities is to confront the unfiltered costs of war. These costs include physical and psychological harm that, for many, have lifelong consequences. Many harms could be prevented, or at least mitigated, through respect for international law, including the duty to spare civilians and to respect their protected status, and those whose job it is to help.
Continued war and impunity will only increase these statistics and suffering. We must remain steadfast and resolute in reclaiming and normalising calls to protect civilians and respect for international law, and to challenge those who feign concern while explaining away death and injury. This is our duty – to all civilians, including children and people with a disability struggling to survive in Gaza, and the future of our shared humanity.
All articles posted on this blog give the views of the author(s), and not the position of the Department of Sociology, LSE Human Rights, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Image credit: hosnysalah