Children pushing a cart in Gaza. Source: Anadolu Agency

Data on the situation in Palestine

Last updated on 22/05/2025

The totality of Gaza's population has been internally displaced, with nearly 70 percent of all structures destroyed or damaged, including 92 percent of all housing units. Many have been displaced multiple times, with some reporting 10 times or more.

Nobody knows how many people have been killed in Gaza since Israel's invasion in October 2023. In May 2025, Gazan authorities reported at least 54,000 people killed, but a credible study from June, 2024 estimated already then the total death toll at around 186.000 people or 8% of the strip's population.

Disability data is also extremely difficult to verify. A report by UNICEF in March, 2025 indicated that between 3 and 4 thousand children have had one or more limbs amputated, making Gaza the population with the highest number of child amputees in the world.

On January 2025, Save the Children estimate that every day, at least 15 children are inflicted injuries that leave them with life-long disabilities.

For these children, recovery and rehabilitation are blocked by Israel's systematic destruction of healthcare facilities, including Gaza’s only limb reconstruction and rehabilitation centre, which has been non-functional since December 2023, and damaged in a February 2024 attack.

As of May 7, 2025, WHO reports at least 686 attacks targeting 122 health facilities in Gaza, which damaged 33 of the strip's 36 hospitals.

Left: After 17 months of censorship and concealing, western mainstream media are starting to report the horrific crimes being committed by Israeli forces in Gaza. On this segment from UK's Sky News, an emergency doctor describes the situation: "For 81 days, the last remaining funcioning hospital in northern Gaza has been under siege by the Israeli army. The emergency room and operating theaters have been hit by explosives, and quadcopters and snipers fire into the maternity ward... There is no functioning healthcare system in Gaza."

Right: Israel bombs the medicine warehouse of Al-Awda Hospital, in Tel Al-Zaatar. Emergency teams have been unable to bring the blaze under control. Israel's attack of the warehouse coincides with its deliberate blockage of aid and medicines into the Gaza Strip amid a surge in casualties (Source: Quds News Network).

Only 16 out of the 36 hospitals (44%) are partially functional, with 11 being partially accessible and no functioning hospitals in Rafah (WHO, 29/07/2024).

Only 4,916 patients (35% of 13,880 requested cases) have been evacuated since October due to medical evacuation (WHO, 29/07/2024).

system in Gaza has been non-functioning for 2 academic years. None of the 745,000 students there, from elementary school to higher education, have had any formal schooling for over a year, according to the UN.

Since October 7, attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank have killed over 1000 people, including 200 children.

The entire population of Gaza face famine and catastrophic levels of food insecurity. In May 2025, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor documented 26 deaths from starvation, including nine children, in just 24 hours.

There are about 9300 Palestinian political prisoners and detainees in Israeli prisons.

Systematic torture by Israeli authorities, including to children, is amply documented by multiple sources, including UN's OHCHR.

Persons with disabilities

Before October 7, 58000 Palestinians with disabilities had been identified, with the number doubling from 2007 to 2017.*

12% of children had one or more disabilities in 2020, with more than 1,000 acquiring one since October, and 10 to 12 children undergoing amputations daily.*

At least 5,000 out of the 79,562 people injured were persons with disabilities.

People with disabilities are estimated to constitute more than 15% of the displaced population.

Of the 36 hospitals in Gaza, only 4 were not damaged, raided by Israeli forces or gone out of service.

Women with disabilities in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are 4 times more likely to experience intimate partner violence than other women.

*Disability activists and organisations believe the prevalence of disability before the war is higher.

Challenges faced by persons with disabilities in Gaza

Evacuation and displacement

Evacuation warnings are often not provided, and when they do, they are not accessible or are provided some minutes in advance, not providing enough time to evacuate persons with mobility difficulties.
Reduced or lack of ability to evacuate, reliance on carers or family members to carry them or having to leave them behind, as well as mobility difficulties through the rubble and destruction in the streets, impossible for some persons with high-support needs.
Absence of interpreters for deaf people and additional safety risks due to not being able to communicate, creating isolation, and not being able to hear sound warnings or know where to run.
Forced displacement led to persons with disabilities living in overcrowded and inaccessible conditions, with some people being displaced multiple times.
Some persons with disabilities were detained by Israeli forces, with reports of detainees facing degrading conditions, abuse, denied access to lawyers and medical care, and their location being withheld.

Humanitarian aid and access to essentials

Lack of accessible safe areas, such as shelters, toilets and other essential facilities. Squat toilets are common, which are inaccessible to persons with mobility difficulties.
Lack of accessible information in evacuation orders and on the location of safe areas and how to access humanitarian aid, with internet disruptions making it harder to find information in accessible forms.
Persons with disabilities who are caretakers, such as with visual disabilities, struggle to dislocate to unknown areas and to access essential needs for their families, with many as single caretakers having no other option than risking their lives to find essential items.
Informational, communicational and physical barriers to get to aid distribution points for food, safe water and other essential assistance.
Standing hours in line to receive aid and changes in routine can be difficult or impossible for autistic people or for people with intellectual disabilities.
There is no comprehensive information on the total number of people with disabilities and their location in Gaza, making humanitarian responders unable to reach them or provide for their needs.
There has been reports of attacks targeting humanitarian convoys and civilians seeking aid such as the 'Flour Massacre' in February 2024, with persons with disabilities not being able to easily and quickly escape in these cases.

Access to medical and disability care

Lack of access to medical care and life-saving medication, such as medication for diabetes, nutritional supplements, cardiovascular conditions or anti-epileptics. Anaesthesia is also absent or low, leading to people undergoing surgical procedures such as amputations, including children, without it.
The targeting of hospitals and denial of access to healthcare facilities by Israeli soldiers especially affects persons with disabilities, older persons and pregnant women.
Disability organizations and services are not being able to operate during the war, and many of them have been targeted, including specialised facilities for persons with disabilities such as Sheikh Hamad Hospital for Rehabilitation, the Assistive Devices Center of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, and many others.

Assistive devices and disability specific needs

Persons with disabilities’ needs, essential items and specific measures are usually not included in the humanitarian aid interventions, making it harder or sometimes impossible to access average aid.
The Israeli blockade on the entry of essential humanitarian aid, such as fuel, food, water, medicine and others, makes necessities even more difficult to access.
Lack of access to assistive devices, such as wheelchairs, walkers, hearing aids and batteries, due to the Israeli forces not allowing these and other essential assistive devices to enter Gaza through humanitarian aid.
Some persons with disabilities had their medical or assistive devices destroyed during Israeli strikes or had to leave them behind during the evacuation, which was already difficult to access due to Israeli restrictions on the movement of people and goods before Oct 7.
Inability to use equipment powered by electricity due to the cut of electricity, such as elevators, food-grinding equipment or mobility scooters.
Israeli attacks targeted emergency warehouses set up as part of humanitarian response plans for serving people with disabilities, with the majority of these being destroyed.

Women and girls with disabilities

Women and girls with disabilities face heightened vulnerability to sexual assault, sexually transmitted infections, and forced healthcare practices, such as abortion, because of limited access to sexual and reproductive health. There were reports of sexual violence in overcrowded shelters and during detainment.
Pregnant women are struggling to access healthcare facilities, with many giving birth without anaesthetics or other needed medications.

Violations of international law

Israeli military operations are in violation of Article 11 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, that obliges all state parties “to ensure the protection and safety of persons with disabilities in situations of risk, including situations of armed conflict, humanitarian emergencies, and the occurrence of natural disasters” and violate Security Council Resolution No. 2475 (2019) where the Security Council unanimously agrees for “Member States and parties to armed conflict to protect persons with disabilities in conflict situations and to ensure they have access to justice, basic services, and unimpeded humanitarian assistance.”

A recent report by QADER for Community Development identified 13 breaches of international humanitarian law, 18 types of war crimes during the aggression on Gaza, 10 types of crimes against humanity in the Strip and 4 types of genocide crimes.

How you can help:

Advocate with your government and representatives for your country to recognise the State of Palestine. As of June 2024, the State of Palestine is recognized as a sovereign state by 144 of the 193 member states of the United Nations.
Contact your governmental representatives to demand action and vote for representatives committed to demand a cease fire, and sanctions against Israel. International pressure to allow humanitarian aid to enter freely and safely, including disability essentials, is urgent.
Use this page information to write an essay for your local or national newspaper asking for the support of people with disabilities in Palestine and the end of the occupation and aggression.
Humanitarian aid organisations must ensure that aid measures and distribution are inclusive of accessible to persons with disabilities.
Ask your University to disclose their investments and divest from companies and organisations linked to Israel and associated or supporting the war in Gaza. The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement has a list of companies that profit from the genocide in Gaza and the ocupation of Palestine, and you can use that list to stop using their products or services.
Donate to Operation Olive Branch, Crips for eSims for Gaza or World Federation of the Deaf.
If you are aware or have any evidence of war crimes, please submit the evidence to the International Criminal Court, or contact us. Videos and images shared through social media by soldiers can be submitted as evidence.
If you are a disability advocate or organisation attending Conference of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (COSP), and you have opportunities to speak, please advocate for Palestinians with disabilities. You can share any intervention with #CRPD4Palestine.
Develop accessible information and protests for people with disabilities to be able to participate in advocating on this topic, such as these Easy-Read guides on the situation in Palestine.
If you are planning actions to protest the genocide and support Palestinians with disabilities, get in touch with us.