High Court tells state to draw up formal procedure for Gaza medical evacuations

Human rights groups noted in a June petition that 14,000 Gazan civilians are in need of medical treatment outside Gaza; only 225 have since been evacuated

Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter

Palestinians evacuate patients from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip following renewed Israeli evacuation orders for the area on August 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)
Palestinians evacuate patients from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip following renewed Israeli evacuation orders for the area on August 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)

The High Court of Justice has ordered the state to draw up a formal procedure for the evacuation of sick and injured Gazan civilians from the war-torn territory for medical treatment in a third country.

Wednesday’s decision came in response to a petition filed by three human rights organizations in June demanding the establishment of a bureaucratic mechanism for medical evacuations, after Egypt shut down the Rafah Border Crossing for such evacuations when Israel took control of the crossing in May.

The court noted that the state has provided some instructions for those needing treatment to get approval for an evacuation, but said it has yet to establish a formal framework to allow for an adequate medical response to the needs of the thousands of sick and injured Gazan civilians in need of such assistance.

According to the left-wing Physicians for Human Rights in Israel organization, some 50 Gazan civilians had been leaving the territory every day through the Rafah crossing for medical treatment in third countries, with around 5,000 leaving the territory between October 7, 2023 — when Hamas’s mass onslaught in Israel sparked the war — and the beginning of May this year. Such evacuations stopped after Egypt closed the crossing, however.

Some 225 Gazans in need of medical treatment have been evacuated since then through the Kerem Shalom Crossing into Israel and then on to the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Egypt and Romania for treatment.

But the petitioners stated back in June that 14,000 people were in need of treatment at the time. Attorney Adi Lustigman of Physicians for Human Rights said that the need for such evacuations has only grown since that time as the number of patients has grown and Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure has further deteriorated due to the ongoing hostilities.

A young Palestinian amputee evacuated from the Gaza Strip sits in a wheelchair as a medic looks on, aboard an Emirati floating hospital in the Egyptian port of Al-Arish on July 4, 2024, during an organized press tour. (Photo by Giuseppe CACACE / AFP)

The High Court stated in its decision that Israel’s Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) agency has given international organizations and host countries a list of actions they need to take for an evacuation to happen.

“However, a procedure which formalizes the necessary aspects of this issue has yet to be presented to us or the relevant external parties in a manner which would allow the effective implementation of the [state’s] policies so that they be adequate for the medical needs in those circumstances in which there are no security obstacles,” the court pointed out.

“Every day that the sick and wounded in Gaza are left without medical aid comes at a cost of human life, including children and babies,” said Physicians for Human Rights attorneys Adi Lustigman and Tamir Blank.

“The many months that have passed since the Rafah crossing was closed without a formal mechanism for the evacuation of patients, have caused suffering, irreversible injury and death, all of which was unnecessary and could have been prevented,” they added, demanding that the state now allow regular access to treatment in third countries “so that those for whom it is still possible can be saved.”

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