In Gaza, 1,100 children with amputations wait for care that the Israeli state is blocking

According to Al Jazeera, an NGO says Israel is restricting the treatment of 1,100 children with amputations in Gaza. The limits placed on travel and medical evacuations are preventing these children from receiving care abroad. That is what we know at this stage. The rest of the dispatch is thin: we do not know the name of the NGO, how the count was made, how many children have already been evacuated or refused, or how the Israeli authorities have responded. We will not invent it.

A child with an amputation is not a file. He or she needs prostheses, which must be replaced as the child grows, along with rehabilitation and surgical follow-up. When leaving the territory depends on an authorisation, every week of waiting is a week of life worn away. We say this soberly, because the facts do not need to be inflated.

What follows is our reading, not an established fact. These restrictions do not fall from the sky. They are the instrument of a state that controls the crossing points and decides who leaves and who stays. A state, Lenin reminded us, is not an arbiter above society: it is an apparatus of power serving precise interests. Here the apparatus is military, and control of movement forms part of the war just as much as weapons do. Treating or not treating becomes a decision of territorial management.

Cui bono? Let us ask the question plainly. Not the children, obviously. Nor the population, which endures it. The one who profits from a sealed territory is the one who intends to keep it in dependence, without anyone calling them to account. What does Israel invoke to justify these limits: security, procedures? The dispatch does not say. And even if the argument exists, it would need to explain why children with amputations are paying the price.

There is also the silence of the powers. The capitals that speak of a "rules-based order" often supply arms, diplomatic cover and alliances to the state imposing these restrictions. A great power protects its regional ally because it serves its position in the region: routes, energy, influence. This is what is called a sphere of influence. Children's rights come second. Humanitarian appeals, by contrast, are always welcome, because they cost nothing.

What the facts would allow us to verify is simple. How many evacuations were requested, how many granted, and within what timeframes? Who decides, and on what criteria? The governments that finance and arm have the means to ask these questions and demand answers. They can also keep declaring themselves "concerned". We will see which of the two choices they make. We will follow up, and we will publish the answers, if they come.