The call for global action for Palestinian disability rights has never been more urgent

This piece is both professional and deeply personal. As an occupational therapist, a member of Healthcare Workers 4 Palestine South Africa and a South African crew member of the Global Sumud Flotilla, I am preparing to set sail for Gaza. The flotilla is the largest effort yet to break the siege and establish a humanitarian sea corridor to Gaza. It is a people’s flotilla – by the people, for the people, with the people – as the 38th such effort to break the illegal and immoral siege of Gaza.

In 2010, I was paralysed by Guillain-Barré syndrome, relying on life support on a ventilator for 30 days. I spent about 40 days in the ICU and then four months in hospital, followed by an 18-month rehabilitation to relearn basic functions like breathing, speaking and walking. In 2018, I was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a bilateral mastectomy and intensive chemotherapy. Together with my professional outlook, these health challenges have invoked in me concern for the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank who have chronic conditions and persons with disabilities.

We need to be clear. The ongoing genocide in Gaza is not only a devastating humanitarian crisis but also a mass disabling crime against humanity that leaves deep impacts on people with long-standing disabilities and those newly disabled, not to mention the scars on the community’s physical and mental wellbeing. The relentless violence and destruction have resulted in countless casualties, with many people suffering severe injuries that will affect them for the rest of their lives. According to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, 40,000 people have new injuries, and existing disabilities are a result of decades of systematic policies of inflicting suffering on the Palestinian people.

In addition to the immediate human toll, this situation is compounded by the deliberate targeting and killing of healthcare professionals who are essential to provide life-saving and rehabilitative care. More than 1,400 healthcare professionals have been killed, such as my fellow rehabilitation professional, physiotherapist Reem Abu Lebdeh in Khan Younis, and the paramedics in the Rafah Paramedic Massacre, to name a few. Dr Hussam Abu Safiya of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza, a Palestinian paediatrician and neonatologist who served as director of the hospital, and Dr Mohammed Obeid, head of orthopaedics at Al-Awla Hospital, are still being detained illegally with many other healthcare workers in Israeli prisons.

Although the call to end the genocide in Gaza is framed as a call to uphold human rights, it often excludes or marginalises disability rights. Disability rights are human rights. Worldwide, more than one billion people have a disability. In Gaza, the number is disproportionately high, with disabilities ranging from mental challenges to the highest number of amputees in the world.

The occupying power’s actions seem to deliberately cause disablement as part of the  genocidal architecture. People with disabilities face significant dangers, including military attacks and the siege on Gaza, struggling to access safety, medical care, assistive devices, food, water and other essentials. 

The current evacuation order for Gaza City makes it nearly impossible for people who are blind, deaf or wheelchair users to access assistive devices, which are scarce, to flee to safety.

Evacuating and seeking refuge is fraught with challenges and so-called evacuation orders are ineffectual. Hospitals and medical infrastructure have suffered repeated attacks such that a few are barely operational, breaking all norms of the protections of hospitals, places of religious worship and schools. Access to wheelchairs and other necessary devices and supplies are severely restricted as they are considered “dual use” by the occupying power.

Read more: Israel-Palestine War

As occupational therapists, we help people perform activities of daily living that they need to do and want to do. The basic activities of daily living are the essential tasks for self-care and physical survival, typically including bathing, dressing, eating, functional mobility (transferring and ambulating), personal hygiene and grooming, and toileting. These activities are essential for daily functioning and maintaining personal independence and health. What we see in Gaza at a basic level is that performing these activities have collapsed as a normal part of an everyday routine of hygiene and self-care. 

Menstrual hygiene is another urgent and critical issue that demands immediate attention in Gaza. Currently, more than 540,000 women and girls of reproductive age are facing a dire need for access to essential hygiene and health products. The lack of these basic sanitary necessities can lead to severe health complications and significantly impact health and future reproduction. Measures need to be taken swiftly to ensure that these women and girls can manage their menstrual health with dignity. 

Children with disabilities are particularly vulnerable to malnutrition and starvation while enduring severe mental health impacts alongside the broader trauma affecting all Palestinians in Gaza. Many children who already had disabilities before October 2023 now suffer additional injuries such as burns and amputations along with psychological scars. The loss of dedicated disability rights defenders like Bader Mosleh and Hashem Ghazal (the “godfather” of the local deaf community), and the dog attack of Muhammad Bhar, a young man with Down’s syndrome, amplifies a troubling silence within the global disability rights community and society at large about these injustices in Palestine.

The time to act is now. The call for global action for Palestinian disability rights has never been more urgent. As the challenges faced by people with disabilities in Palestine continue to mount, international support networks must rally together to provide the necessary organising and mobilising.

We often commend the sumud, or steadfastness, of the Palestinian people as they enact dignity amid the harrowing conditions of a dehumanising genocide. However, this genocide demands urgent reflection from each citizen of the global community: Where is our sumud for the Palestinian people? 

We need to ask ourselves about how we can stand with sumud in solidarity with the Palestinian people. The Global Sumud Flotilla is part of a global movement of sumud to break the illegal and immoral siege of Gaza and open up a humanitarian sea corridor of aid with direct nonviolent action. The time to act is now; our collective solidarity could be important in influencing change and providing much-needed hope and support to those who continue to endure unimaginable hardships. We must harness our sumud for meaningful actions and push for enduring solutions that honour love, justice and humanity. DM