A/HRC/40/74 80. The commission investigated several cases of demonstrators whose limbs had to be amputated after they were shot by Israeli security forces, including the following: • Abed Nofal (11) On 17 April, Abed, a schoolboy from the Bureij refugee camp, was shot by Israeli forces while he was playing football near the separation fence. His leg had to be amputated. • Bricklayer (26) On 6 April, Israeli forces shot a bricklayer from Rafah when he was 300 m from the separation fence. His leg had to be amputated. Once the family breadwinner, he is now unable to work. • Retired teacher (63) On 13 April, Israeli forces shot a retired teacher in the leg in El Bureij. He was approximately 400 m from the separation fence. His leg was amputated the same day. • Farmer (38) and construction worker (31) Israeli forces shot two siblings, one a construction worker, the other a farmer, in the legs on two different days at the same demonstration site. Both had to have their legs amputated, with devastating consequences for their families’ livelihood. 81. Israeli forces caused permanent disabilities to many of the 940 children shot during the demonstrations. The commission investigated the following cases: • Ahmad Ghanem (15) On 1 June, Ahmad, a schoolboy from the Bureij refugee camp, was shot in the torso by Israeli snipers while he was socializing with other demonstrators approximately 280 m from the separation fence. He subsequently had to have half of a lung and half of his liver removed. He has a 30 per cent chance of recovering the use of his right hand. • Schoolboy (15) On 26 October, at the maritime demonstration site in North Gaza, Israeli forces shot a schoolboy, standing some 120 m from the separation fence, with a single bullet to the testicles. He is now unable to walk more than 30 m and has been forced to drop out of school. 82. The commission found that Israeli security forces shot a number of male demonstrators in the lower abdomen and groin. It also received reports of women being shot in the groin. These victims have told the commission that they were now unlikely to be able to have children. VII. Impact on the health sector in Gaza 83. The scale and complexity of injuries – often requiring specialized, long-term medical care or orthopaedic, vascular or plastic surgery – inflicted by the Israeli security forces on Palestinian demonstrators would be a challenge to any country’s health-care system. With over 6,000 people suffering gunshot wounds from live ammunition, mostly to lower limbs, Gaza faced what Médecins Sans Frontières termed a “slow-motion health-care emergency”.9 84. According to an international doctor working at a Gaza hospital, interviewed by the commission, “It was striking the number of extremely similar injuries; massive open wounds in the legs, with skin and muscles ‘blown out’, bones smashed to pieces, and damage to blood vessels leading to vascular injury, putting the entire limb at risk.” 9 www.msf.org/gazans-injuries-risk-permanently-shattering-lives-palestine. 17