Around 1.3 billion people experience significant disability—around 16% of the world’s population. This number is generally even higher in conflict-affected areas. Yet persons with disabilities are relatively invisible in humanitarian action, peacebuilding efforts, and other activities across the peace continuum. We are now celebrating the 25th anniversary of the women, peace, and security agenda and the 10th anniversary of the youth, peace, and security agenda, but “women and youth with disabilities tend not to be mainstreamed into those programmes.” As noted by Gerard Quinn, the former UN special rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities, “There is no equivalent focus on persons with disabilities.”

In this interview, Heba Hagrass, the current special rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities, discusses the challenges facing persons with disabilities living in conflict-affected areas—especially in Gaza. She also shares examples of persons with disabilities playing an active role in peacebuilding. She argues that it is time for a dedicated agenda on disability, peace, and security.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Wherever war breaks out, it leaves disability in its wake. One of the places where this is most evident is Gaza. How has Israel’s war on Gaza affected the population of persons with disabilities?

Before the war, there were an estimated 58,000 persons with disabilities, according to official statistics. But this data was not comprehensive and relied on a narrow definition of disability. So while we use 58,000 as a baseline, the true figure was almost certainly higher.

Since the war, more than 167,000 people have been injured, and the World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated that about 25% of these injuries will be life-changing. This means that more than 40,000 injured people will be persons with disabilities who will need specific assistance, support and rehabilitation just to manage daily life.

I recently spoke with Dr. Iyad Krunz, from the NGO Stars of Hope Society who is also the coordinator of the Disability Working Group in Gaza, and he stressed that what is happening is a deliberate, slow execution of people who have no ability to endure. Persons with disabilities are fragile and vulnerable, and what is happening now is targeting them directly and deeply.

Children are the ones who suffer most. According to UNICEF, an average of 28 children have been killed every day in Gaza since the start of the war, and according to Save the Children, a daily average of more than 10 children have lost their limbs. Gaza now has the highest number of child amputees per capita in the world. Beyond the physical injuries, there are devastating social and and psychological impacts, worsened by discrimination and gender-based violence against persons with disabilities. The repeated displacements have caused massive trauma. The intersection of age, gender, and disability compounds the effects on Gaza’s children.

What are some of the ways that persons with disabilities are most at risk during conflict? Can you provide any examples from Gaza?

From day one, it was very clear that persons with disabilities in Gaza were not receiving evacuation notifications and did not know where to go or how to move safely from one site to another. The early-warning systems and evacuation mechanisms completely failed to reach them and help them prepare to move.

For someone with a disability, it takes much more time to prepare—to connect assistive devices, prepare a wheelchair, even just to get dressed. When warnings were inaccessible to the hearing- or visually impaired, this put their lives in jeopardy. Many were unable to evacuate in time and lost their lives.

One example is a Palestinian advocate who was visually impaired. He was killed in his house when bombardments hit his neighborhood because he never received advance warning in an accessible format. He left behind four children between the ages of two and ten.

Another is Muhammed Bhar, a young man with intellectual disabilities who had difficulties moving, especially in large crowds, was attacked by army dogs in his house and left there to die with his family prevented from coming to rescue him.

Children with disabilities have also not been spared. I was struck for example by the experience of a  14-year-old girl with cerebral palsy. Her assistive devices, including her wheelchair, were destroyed in an Israeli airstrike. When her family fled south to escape the bombardments, her parents carried her, but everyone became exhausted. She would tell her mother, “Mama, it’s over. Leave me here, and you run away.” She was later displaced in a tent in Rafah without access to basic needs, including the physiotherapy she used to receive.

Israeli attacks have also destroyed much of the infrastructure, equipment, and services that persons with disabilities rely on, as UN experts have warned. For example, the main building of the Atfaluna Society for Deaf Children in Gaza City, an NGO that provides specific and vital services for Gazans with hearing impairments including education for deaf children, was bombed in March 2024. Disability inclusion and services in Gaza—including healthcare, rehabilitation, education, and physical transport and accessibility—have been set back decades.

These stories show how unendurable the situation is for persons with disabilities—they struggle to move, to find safety, or to survive in displacement camps that are neither accessible nor suitable and where their wheelchairs are often damaged on rough ground.

In conflict-affected settings, persons with disabilities are not only at greater risk but are also often excluded from peacebuilding processes. Looking beyond Gaza, what are some examples of peacebuilding processes that have been inclusive of persons with disabilities?

We have examples from other countries. In Colombia, organizations of persons with disabilities were engaged in implementing the peace accords—monitoring, reintegrating ex-combatants with disabilities, and ensuring transitional justice processes reflected their perspectives.

In South Sudan, disability-inclusive peace dialogues facilitated by the UN and civil society created safe spaces for women and youth with disabilities to express their priorities in local peace agreements.

These examples underscore the role and value of persons with disabilities as equal partners in peacebuilding, and highlight the need for institutionalized mechanisms to secure their participation on a sustainable basis.

You’ve argued that there should also be a disability, peace, and security agenda—similar to the women, peace, and security and youth, peace, and security agendas. Could you explain why you think this is important?

It comes from the recognition that persons with disabilities are often overlooked in peace and security frameworks. We are not considered. We are not there. And if we are not there, we cannot expect to be safe or to have the support needed to manage our lives—even though we are disproportionately affected by conflicts and crises.

A dedicated agenda would build upon the normative foundation of Resolution 2475 (2019), which was the first time the Security Council called upon member states to protect persons with disabilities in conflict situations. It would provide a coherent framework for action, similar to the transformative impact achieved by the women, peace, and security and youth, peace, and security agendas.

Such an agenda would establish clear commitments for the Security Council and member states:

• Ensure participation of persons with disabilities in peace processes.
• Protect them from conflict-related violence and discrimination.
• Guarantee accessibility in humanitarian and peacebuilding responses.
• Promote accountability for violations of their rights by institutionalizing a disability perspective within the Security Council’s work.

This agenda would help move from ad hoc initiatives to systemic change, reinforcing the universality and indivisibility of human rights.