LONDON: Wounds caused by Israeli bombs and bullets accounted for nearly half of the injuries treated at outpatient clinics run by Medecins Sans Frontieres in Gaza last year, according to data published in medical journal The Lancet.
Almost a third of day patients treated for such injuries at the charity’s health centers in the territory were children, the figures revealed, further highlighting the devastating human cost to Palestinian civilians of nearly two years of conflict.
The six MSF-supported health centers from which the data was collected were located mostly in central and southern Gaza. More than 200,000 outpatient consultations were conducted at the facilities during 2024. More than 90,000 of them involved wounds, and nearly 40,000 of them were caused by “violent trauma,” primarily the result of bombing, shelling and gunfire.
The data does not include figures for other healthcare services provided by MSF, such as operating theaters and emergency rooms, nor does it take account of people killed at the scene of attacks.
In two of the hospitals, MSF staff found nearly 60 percent of lower-limb wounds were caused by explosive weapons, “often with open injuries to bone, muscle or skin,” according to The Lancet.
“Explosive weapons are designed to be used in open battlefields, but are increasingly being used in urban areas,” the report continued. “The makeshift shelters in which people live following frequent displacement offer almost no protection against explosive weapons, and especially their secondary effects such as blast, shrapnel and incendiary impact.”
The Israeli offensive in Gaza, which has been described as amounting to a genocide by many international organizations and governments, has killed nearly 63,000 Palestinians, about half of them women and children, according to figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Of all outpatients treated for wounds at the MSF facilities last year, nearly a third were children under the age of 15, and another third were women.
The data was gathered before Israeli authorities imposed a total blockade on Gaza earlier this year, halting supplies of food and medical aid. Even before that development, however, the MSF staff collecting the information about outpatients described a lack of “crucial supplies and equipment necessary to treat these complex wounds.”
Almost a fifth of patients arriving at the health centers for first-time treatment of their injuries had infected wounds, the data revealed.
“In one MSF-supported health facility, wound infections were as high as 28 percent,” the report said.
Gaza’s healthcare system has been decimated by the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Half of the 36 hospitals that were operational before the war have closed, and more than 1,500 Palestinian healthcare workers have been killed.
MSF said the violence unleashed by the Israeli military has caused “physical and mental damage on a scale that would overwhelm even the best-functioning health systems in the world.”
