Palestinians with disabilities subject to unbearable consequences of the ongoing hostilities and violence in the OPT

The Committee calls upon all parties to cease attacks, violence, and hostilities against civilians. The Committee is extremely troubled that the last seven months of confrontation have led to massive destruction, death, loss and suffering for civilians in Gaza, including at least 58,000 people with disabilities, the majority of them children, older people and women. It is gravely distressed about the situation of persons with disabilities taken hostage, and the reports of killings of persons with disabilities in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, by Israeli forces. The Committee echoes with dismay the concerns of several international mandate-holders about the latest evacuation orders from Eastern and Southern Rafah affecting close to one million Palestinians in addition to the at least 1.7 million people in Gaza already displaced - hundreds of thousands displaced multiple times.

The Committee recalls to the State of Israel as the occupying Power of its obligations pursuant to Article 11 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (the Convention) to take all necessary measures to ensure the protection and safety of persons with disabilities in situations of risk, including situations of armed conflict. States parties to the Convention should apply Article 11, which includes international humanitarian law, and the law on occupation as defined in conventional and customary international law. The Committee calls on parties to the conflict to comply with the core principles of the laws of armed conflict during the conduct of hostilities, notably the principles of distinction, proportionality and precautions, the fundamental guarantees of humane treatment and non-discrimination, and ensure unhindered access of humanitarian relief urgently needed for civilians in Gaza.

The Committee is appalled that survival and the physical and mental integrity of persons with disabilities remains at stake. They are at higher risks of dying, becoming injured and acquiring further impairments. Available data indicates that out of 79,562, at least 5,000 people injured were persons with disabilities and that more than 1,000 children have acquired impairment as their limbs have been removed. This figures, however, could be higher as challenges to obtain reliable data and information about persons with disabilities persists. Women and children with disabilities are among the 70 percent of civilians killed and 75 percent of those reportedly injured. They face heightened vulnerability to sexual abuse, sexually transmitted infections, and forced healthcare practices because of limited access to sexual and reproductive health services in Gaza. Older persons with disabilities, women with disabilities and children with disabilities have lost access to appropriate sanitation facilities, safe and accessible shelter and, crucially, food and water to survive.

Children with disabilities have been exposed to a heightened risk of family separation, and their suffering is unendurable. The Committee is shocked by the account of a 14-year-old girl with cerebral palsy and refugee in Eastern Rafah , whose parents carried her during the family escape from the North to the South of Gaza and who had lost her assistive devices, including a wheelchair, amid military attacks. Being exhausted and exposed to the dangerous flee, the girl desperately cried out, “Mama, it’s over. Leave me here, and you run away”. She continues to face fear over the warnings of military operations in Rafah and the danger of another displacement in the absence of her mobility devices . Her situation exposes the constant psychological distress and trauma being experienced by children with disabilities. Children with intellectual disabilities have been further subjected to severe disruption in the education system, given the suspension of the school year 2023-2024, the closing of Government schools and the destruction of at least 65 schools previously administered by UNWRA and the use of schools as temporary shelters. Prior to 7 October, about 21,000 children were recognized as children with intellectual disabilities in Gaza. The Committee is dismayed that in overcrowded refugee camps and tents, children like Amir, a boy displaced jointly with his mum and younger brother from Khan Younis and with intellectual disabilities, facing distress and has lost any option for education, habilitation and rehabilitation that are crucial for their early development, including her communicational skills.

5. Persons with disabilities have been put in extreme distress with the expectation that they will be the first and the next to be killed because of the limited opportunities to flee and take part in first or successive evacuations due to impairment. The vast destruction of housing and civil infrastructure, and the resultant rubble, has curtailed any possibility of movement that is essential to escape, evacuate and seek protection. The absence of advance warning and information in accessible formats about relocation and the destruction of communication networks has rendered evacuation impossible. Being a person with visual impairment meant for the deceased Mr. Y. M., an advocate for the rights of persons with disabilities, the impossibility to flee his house located in an area under attack and bombardments. He was killed at home on 7 December 2023, leaving behind four children aged 2, 3, 8 and 10. He did not receive evacuation information in a timely or accessible format, neither did he or his relatives benefit from any specific accessible passages, accommodation and shelters where he could have found the protection measures and escaped the airstrike. The Committee regrets that disability advocates are among those injured, displaced, separated, traumatized, and grieving their loved ones.

6. The Committee is shocked by the disproportionate impacts on persons with disabilities due to the destruction of hospitals, the cut-off of essential services, restrictions or non-existing access to humanitarian assistance. It is deeply concerned by the lack of access to medical care and medication required for treatment of chronic diseases by persons with disabilities, the lack of access to psychosocial support and their heightened risks of death during searches and attacks to hospitals, and the reported exposure to white phosphorus and toxicity causing serious risks of developing further impairments. The siege has caused a food crisis, which further compounds the situation for persons with disabilities as they are confronted with physical barriers to get to distribution points or have no access to assistive devices or support. The food crisis presents risks of starvation, dehydration, worsening health conditions and imminent death for persons with disabilities.

7. States parties to the Convention, humanitarian stakeholders, and civil society actors should ensure disability-responsive peacebuilding, recovery and reconstruction of Gaza, in close consultation and with the active involvement of persons with disabilities through their representative organizations. Reconstruction requires data collection, including baseline data, reflecting the barriers confronted by persons with disabilities. International cooperation and rescue packages should ensure budgetary lines exclusively for restoring community peer support networks and developing support systems for persons with disabilities in the community, including personal assistance and short, mid-and-long-term programmes to ensure accessible services in the community.

8. The Committee will continue monitoring the situation of persons with disabilities in the armed conflict in the current armed conflict and humanitarian emergency caused by the escalation of the war in Gaza, in conformity with the mechanisms defined in the Convention, in particular Article 36 (1) that provides for the Committee to request further information from State parties relevant to the implementation of the Convention.