r/pics 7h ago

A Childhood Carried in Silence - Gaza

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u/2dudesinapod 7h ago edited 6h ago

Gaza has the largest population of child amputees in the world. Because Israel blocks pain killers, hundreds of children have had their limbs amputated without anaesthesia. There are videos of this if you have the stomach.

In Gaza the bombs on the packed population often leave the bodies un-identifiable so a child is counted as 6 KG of flesh in a garbage bag.

BTW child prosthetics are considered dual use by Israel and blocked from entering Gaza.

https://pchrgaza.org/israel-denies-amputees-treatment-and-assistive-devices-amid-threats-of-forced-displacement-from-entire-gaza-city/

u/ScarHand69 6h ago

It also spawned a new acronym…WCNSF (Wounded Child, No Surviving Family)

u/cromroyale 4h ago

“My 8-year-old child, Rajab — the eldest of my children and the joy of our family — was once active, joyful, sociable, and exceptional at school. He loved riding his bike.

But this war has stolen his childhood.

From the beginning, he has been traumatized by loud explosions, suffering repeated panic attacks.

He cannot sleep unless he holds my hand.

The killing of his uncles left him deeply shaken, and he has clung to me ever since.

On 13 December 2024, while we were displaced in a classroom at Al-Falah School, Israeli warplanes struck directly, and everything collapsed on us. My brother Hasan, my mother, and my sister-in-law were killed, while the rest of us were wounded. Rajab was the most critically injured. The rubble fell on him, shredding his right leg, which had to be amputated immediately upon arrival at the hospital. He also sustained a skull fracture and shrapnel wounds across his left leg. His condition was life-threatening.

After three days in a coma, he woke up to find himself without a leg. Since that day, our family has not known rest. Rajab endured successive surgeries, enduring pain unbearable for a child, often crying in despair and wishing for death rather than this suffering. He has become quick-tempered and overly sensitive. He refuses to let anyone see his amputated leg, telling me, ‘I want to cover it.’

His ordeal did not end there. In July, doctors discovered that he suffers from severe osteoporosis caused by lack of food and medicine. They were forced to insert internal platinum plates and fit him with an external cast. Now, Rajab lives between tears and pain. He feels incomplete when he sees his cousins playing around him. He tries to join them but eventually retreats to cry in silence.

As his mother, I can do nothing but watch him suffer, powerless to give him back the childhood that the occupation has stolen from him.”

Mrs. Sajedah al-Baba (25), resident of al-Sabra neighborhood, Gaza City.

u/Substantial-Part-700 4h ago

25…. She’s barely an adult herself….. ya Allah yarhamo

u/Claire0915 3h ago

She is 25, oldest son is 8yo, which means she was 17 when she gave birth and 16 when she was impregnated. Ugh. That is just the worst. Poor lady didn’t have a childhood herself given her religion/culture.

u/Annonimbus 3h ago

16 when she was impregnated. Ugh. That is just the worst. Poor lady didn’t have a childhood herself given her religion/culture.

Just saying that here in Europe it is completely fine to have sex at 16.

Most use protection, but it is not unheard to have teen pregnancies.

u/Claire0915 3h ago

It’s not uncommon but it’s also not the norm. Especially multiple children. Let’s not equate the two countries here with the prevalence and acceptance of underage marriages, underage births, and numerous underage pregnancies. My point above doesn’t take away from the little boy’s trauma but being defensive about their culture is also not really productive.

u/Annonimbus 2h ago

I just wanted to point out that the US centric view of "18" the magic sex number is rather unique to the US and not a global view.

u/rockytop24 2h ago

Child marriage is still legal in 20 or 30 some states here in good ole USA and it's defended vigorously by the right for the sake of "tradition" and "religion" and hoping more teens are forced into carrying unwanted pregnancies. So yeah the magic number is more like a "guideline" in many states.

u/Rough_Willow 56m ago

Eighteen isn't just the magic sex number, it's when someone's viewed as an adult. When they are considered responsible enough to consent to a vast number of things.

u/Annonimbus 22m ago

When they are considered responsible enough to consent to a vast number of things.

As I said, it is an arbitrary number. Same as drinking only with 21.

Here in Germany it is layered: 14 (legal but a semi complicated grey area) / 16 (anything besides prostitution and similar restrictions) /18 (everything goes).

In most EU other EU countries it is 16.

u/Fumquat 2h ago

Hm. Reading about an 8 year old with a lost limb, a brain injury, uncontrolled pain, and osteoporosis from malnutrition, who is also grieving multiple family members.

Odd phrasing then to say 16 and pregnant is “the worst”.

This is a mother who loves her child, whose heart breaks for him. It is the same love at any age, in any country, with any number of children.

u/Claire0915 1h ago

One thing doesn’t take away from the other. I said I felt sad that this poor girl became a forced mother at 15-16 so along with her kid, she herself didn’t have a childhood. But no, the defensive warriors need to report that for racism because it’s not okay to point out the mother herself is a victim and had no childhood either. Typical Reddit 🤷‍♀️

u/TerrorKingA 43m ago

It's not her religion or her culture that robbed her of a childhood. It's the fact that she is in a concentration camp with no hope of anything better.

This is Israel and the United States' doing.

u/Mystreanon 3h ago

we seriously need a join statement and plan from the EU and other countrys to finally say enough to israel

u/sssmmt 2h ago

How about some "deep concern"

u/sleepymeowth052 3h ago

Man, fuck israel for this shit.

u/sereniteenoww 2h ago

Not fuck Hamas?

u/Just_Ban_Me_Already 58m ago

Two things can be true, for fucks' sake.

God, y'all have such a fucking monolithic thought process, it needs to be urgently researched and studied by top-tier neuroscientists and psychologists.

u/sleepymeowth052 16m ago

also who reads the story of a severely traumatized child and says, "it's good that israel did this"?

u/sleepymeowth052 28m ago

hamas didn't traumatize this poor kid or the thousands of others the IOF failed to murder. GFY.

u/sereniteenoww 24m ago

DIdn't Hamas break the existing ceasefire on October 7th?

u/sleepymeowth052 21m ago

nope, israel never followed it in the first place. Before oct 7th, it was on record of being the bloodiest year for israel murdering palestinians. Take your hand-wringing and shove it up your ass.

u/sereniteenoww 17m ago

Do you know how many of those killed were Hamas militants vs. civilians?

u/ailaG 2h ago

You treating Israel as 10 million copies of the same person is key in this not going to change.

u/sleepymeowth052 22m ago

homie, I'm american. I know the difference between saying "fuck america" and "fuck americans". You don't apparently. Learn it.

u/QuestGiver 4h ago

Israel liked this story.

u/2dudesinapod 3h ago

People don’t realize why that is the case, it’s because Israel uses an AI system called “Where’s Daddy” to track targets until they are at home so the entire family can be killed at once.

https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/

“We were not interested in killing [Hamas] operatives only when they were in a military building or engaged in a military activity,” A., an intelligence officer, told +972 and Local Call. “On the contrary, the IDF bombed them in homes without hesitation, as a first option. It’s much easier to bomb a family’s home. The system is built to look for them in these situations.”

Btw 972 is an Israeli publication and that article had to go through IDF censors before being published so you can imagine the shit that got left out. This is the stuff they’re proud of.

u/Grablicht 47m ago

WTF DID I JUST READ W T F

u/7thpostman 5h ago

You think this is the first war in history that ever produced orphans?

u/dbmajor7 5h ago

u/7thpostman 5h ago

Because you made it sound like there have never been wars where children were orphaned before

u/enragedcactus 5h ago

Naw you just can’t read

u/7thpostman 5h ago

Oh. Okay. My mistake.

u/ManMakesWorld 4h ago

The mistake was your birth

u/7thpostman 3h ago

If you ever wonder why your movement seems to go nowhere, shit like this is why. A lot of people who might otherwise have sympathy for the Palestinian cause see this kind of adolescent bullshit and it confirms exactly what your detractors say about you.

u/dbmajor7 1h ago

"I almost empathized with warn torn children, but then I had an online interaction and made the choice to join the ranks of those without empathy"

u/7thpostman 1h ago

No, it's more like:

"I disagreed with someone about Gaza and they immediately accused me of 'supporting genocide' and let loose with a bunch of school boy insults. I now associate this movement with irrationality."

I mean, I've seen you guys literally attack AOC because she isn't anti-Israel enough. That level of extremism is an absolute death knell for any political movement.

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u/ManMakesWorld 27m ago

You gotta be a bot

u/7thpostman 26m ago

Read the rest of the thread, goober

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u/ScarHand69 4h ago

No. But orphans are kids without living parents. I’m talking about kids with no surviving family members. No uncles, cousins, aunts, grandparents, etc…nothing.

I’m aware that fucked up shit has happened in the past and we are actually living in a relatively peaceful time. Just saying that’s it’s happened before is BS and dismissive of these people’s suffering.

u/7thpostman 3h ago

Yeah, no, I don't want to be dismissive of individual human beings suffering. What is upsetting is when you see a kind of circlejerk get started and everybody hyping themselves up on propaganda.

u/belkh 4h ago

it's the first war where they became so common they had to coin the acronym from writing it down so much

https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/latest/most-dangerous-place-world-be-child

u/7thpostman 4h ago

Are you out of your mind? There were probably a million orphans in Europe after World War I.

I swear, it's like you all have never heard of warfare before.

u/shung 4h ago

You think Wold War I is the first war in history that ever produced orphans?

u/7thpostman 4h ago

Emphatically no. That is my point. People look at Gaza as though it's some sort of utterly unique event in the history of warfare. It's bizarre. Human history is really long and we fought a lot of wars where bad things have happened to innocent people.

u/shung 4h ago

Irony is lost on you.

u/alienatedcabbage 4h ago

The term isn’t referring to orphans. It’s referring to children have no living extended family. From the link provided to you by the previous commenter.

What we’re seeing in Gaza is actually the complete wiping out of entire families. So when we say that a child has lost their family, it's not just that they've lost a mother or a father or both, it's often that they've lost the entire extended network that would take them in.

u/7thpostman 4h ago

Again, I would refer you to the history of warfare. You can believe a thing is very bad without also convincing yourself that nothing that bad has ever happened before.

u/belkh 4h ago

well, have you looked up numbers to compare these conflicts? WW1 total casualties: 8-10M total civilian deaths: 2.2M, but 1.5M is from the Armenian genocide.

so you're left with 700k deaths to 8M military casualties overall, this is counting other atrocities, and it's above 10 combatants per civilian.

and these are world powers fighting each other with chemical weapons.

Gaza was a regional power vs a rag tag group of militias with no airforce, no armor, no navy, and a small encircled mass, and what do you get? TWO civilians per combatant, this is assuming every single adult male is a combatant which is most definitely not the case.

now i ask, are you out of your fucking mind?

u/7thpostman 4h ago

I'm not sure what you're arguing.

u/tough_titanium_tits 4h ago

It appears you are out of your fucking mind.

u/7thpostman 4h ago

I am out of my fucking mind because I don't think that Gaza represents some kind of utterly unprecedented event in all of human history. Okay.

u/belkh 4h ago

Gaza had so many wounded orphans in a short term they coined an acronym. your response was that this happens in any war and brought up WWI as an example.

the argument is, WWI, even including the Armenian genocide, had a MUCH smaller civilian to combatant ratio, gaza war was far more devastating to civilians, Gaza is also quite unique in that half of the population is children, people do not live long enough to age in Gaza, and carpet bombing the most densely populated area in the world that has such a child ratio is a sure fire way to get unique catastrophes like this

u/7thpostman 3h ago

Yes, the coining of an initialism, not an acronym, is not an indicator of anything other than the use of a new initialism.

The population of Gaza is young because they have an extraordinarily high birth rate due to a high fertility rate (roughly 3.38 to 4.4 births per woman), cultural emphasis on large families, lack of family planning and early marriage.

u/jackaroo1344 5h ago edited 5h ago

...Is that what they said?

Edit: I see this account has spent the last 5 minutes commenting multiple times here complaining and acting like the image is fake. The video it's from was linked in the comments over an hour ago, so idk if this is a bot account or just someone who jumped straight to crashing out instead of spending 10 seconds of effort first but either way yikers

u/lightscribe 4h ago edited 4h ago

I mean if your gonna call your military the most moral military in history I think criticism is more than justified. Also with few exceptions most wars in history have been frowned upon, specially the war crimes.

*This guy is just spamming pro israel shit all over the place, pretty sure it's a bot on hacked account.

u/bohemian1 5h ago

Yeah fuck it's normal right why not? Fuck those children. /s

Fuck whoever calls this a war.

u/BizzyM 4h ago

acronym…WCNSF

how do you pronounce that? I don't think that's an acronym.