The nightmare of being a disabled Palestinian | Letters

I just read Frances Ryan’s column (Disabled Palestinians face horror upon horror. I think about their suffering every day, October 4). Among the many tragedies and inhumanities in the Middle East that we have read about, I find it heartbreaking on a personal level to hear these nightmarish stories of thousands unable to use their ‘legs’ (what I call my wheelchair) because it lies beneath the rubble that was once their safe place – their home; or go without essential medical treatment, and therefore suffer a preventable decline in health.

It is terrible that more and more people are being added to the legion of people destined to be unable to run, hide, care for themselves or protect their loved ones as the hours and days pass.

After reading the article, I stared at the words for a long time. It felt like I had been punched in the stomach. Having a disability, like me, is never simple or easy; sometimes it’s hard, sometimes it’s impossible. What Palestinian civilians are experiencing is incomprehensible to me and certainly a war crime?
Emma Vinicombe
Alfreton, Derbyshire