Ten-year-old Rateb Aqleq now walks with crutches, balancing his body with a sewer pipe he has fashioned into a prosthetic leg after losing his limb in an Israeli airstrike. Displaced months earlier with his mother and younger brother, Rateb survived an attack in Khan Younis that killed his family and left him severely injured. With medical resources scarce, doctors were forced to amputate his leg, leaving the boy to improvise a solution in order to reclaim a fragment of childhood normality.

Rateb’s grandfather recounts the moment he found him using the pipe. Despite repeated falls and warnings about the dangers, the boy insists on walking and playing like other children, demonstrating remarkable determination in the face of tragedy. His story is emblematic of a wider crisis: Gaza’s hospitals, already under strain, have faced skyrocketing numbers of amputations due to a lack of medical supplies and orthopaedic materials. Since October 2023, over 6,500 amputations have been recorded, nearly tripling pre-war figures, with children accounting for a growing proportion of these cases.

Health officials highlight that the surge in amputations is not merely a consequence of war injuries, but also a product of the blockade that prevents essential prosthetic materials and medicines from reaching patients. Specialists work under extreme pressure, attempting to treat civilians injured in relentless attacks while improvising solutions where formal care is unavailable. For Rateb and thousands of others, survival now depends on courage, creativity, and resilience amid devastating conditions.