This article was originally published in Common Dreams under Creative Commons 3.0 license. Read the original article. Contact: editor@commondreams.org

By Stephen Prager

Gaza has the world’s largest concentration of child amputees thanks to Israel’s genocidal war. Now, as Australian charities seek to deliver hundreds of wheelchairs to the children injured in the onslaught, Israel has reportedly been blocking them for more than a year and a half.

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According to the report, JHCO submitted an application in February 2025 for the wheelchairs to be included in an aid convoy headed to Gaza, where more than 11,000 kids have been left with “severe, life-changing injuries, including permanent disabilities that require long-term care and rehabilitation,” according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

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That application was denied by the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the Israeli agency responsible for aid coordination, because “medical equipment and medicines were not approved for inclusion in that convoy.” The application has been marked as “pending” for the last 19 months, meaning that a new request cannot be sent.

An Israeli government source told ABC that Israel had not blocked the delivery of the wheelchairs. But COGAT did not answer specific questions from the network about what had happened to the shipment.

The agency said it had allowed the entry of thousands of wheelchairs “without any quantitative restrictions,” as well as “approximately 22,000 tons of medical equipment and medicines” since the beginning of the ceasefire in October 2025.

One source told the outlet that the wheelchairs may have been held up under Israel’s rules blocking possible “dual-use” items that authorities believe could serve a military purpose.

The wheelchairs have specialized features: they are adapted for rough terrain to help users navigate the rubble-strewn streets of Gaza and are adjustable to grow with the children who use them.

But as Dr. Abdullah Al-Balawi, a physician with the Palestinian Australian New Zealand Medical Association who has watched the boxes pile up undelivered, explained, “they do not pose any threat.”

The stalled wheelchairs are hardly the first medical or disability equipment to be blocked as a result of Israel’s strict restrictions on humanitarian supplies entering Gaza. Human rights groups have previously documented the use of dual-use restrictions to block wheelchair batteries, X-ray equipment, and materials used to manufacture prosthetic limbs.

It’s not just medical supplies. Portable toilets have also been blocked, as have sleeping bags and tarps. These items are in high demand as around 90% of Palestinians living in Gaza remain displaced, with Israel’s attacks having destroyed most of the buildings. According to a report from humanitarian organizations in April, bandages, diapers, shampoo, and tent poles have also been blocked.

Human Rights Watch has argued that the dual-use restrictions are unnecessarily broad and arbitrary, allowing certain items some days and rejecting them on others. The organization has called on Israel to remove the dual-use label on “medical-related supplies, assistive aids, and accessible technology like eyeglasses, wheelchairs, walkers, canes [and] hearing aids.”

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Amnesty International has described Israel’s blocking of lifesaving medical and other forms of humanitarian assistance—including food, water and sanitation supplies, fuel, and shelter materials and equipment—as part of a pattern that amounts to genocide.

“The humanitarian aid must not stop,” Al-Balawi said. “This is part of the stubbornness of the other side by not letting in this aid; the wheelchairs are only a part of it.”

[AR]

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