Lose a limb or risk death? Growing numbers among Gaza’s thousands of war-wounded face hard decisions

By WAFAA SHURAFA and JACK JEFFERY
Associated Press

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Gaza’s more than 54,500 war-wounded include a growing number of amputees who face hard choices and challenges as they try to survive in a war zone. Health officials say overwhelmed hospitals that now lack vascular surgeons at times had to amputate limbs, which in normal times could have been saved. In other cases, the severe nature of the injuries meant some limbs are not salvageable, and needed to be removed as soon as possible to prevent death from blood poisoning. One of the new amputees, a 22-year-old university student, lost her lower left leg after she developed sepsis from a traumatic injury she suffered during an airstrike.