In 1st since closing of Rafah crossing, Gaza children evacuated for medical treatment
Patients and relatives exiting enclave did not know where they were heading; Gaza doctor says 21 patients a ‘drop in the ocean’ compared to Strip’s medical needs
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip — Twenty-one critically ill children exited Gaza on Thursday in the first medical evacuation since the territory’s sole travel crossing was shut down in early May, Palestinian officials said.
The nearly nine-month Israel-Hamas war has devastated Gaza’s health sector and forced many of its hospitals to shut down. Health officials say thousands of people need medical treatment abroad, including hundreds of urgent cases.
Family members bid a tearful goodbye to the children as they and their escorts left the Nasser Hospital in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis bound for the Kerem Shalom cargo crossing with Israel. Family members said was not clear where they would receive treatment.
The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, the Israeli military body that coordinates civilian affairs in Gaza, later said the children, accompanied by 47 adults, were going to Egypt.
The effort was carried out in coordination with the US, Egypt, and the international community, said the Israel Defense Forces.
COGAT said the move was part of a policy “to enable and alleviate the operation of medical facilities on a sufficient scale in the Gaza Strip.”
The Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, the only one available for people to travel in or out, shut down after the IDF captured it during their operation in the city early last month. Egypt has refused to reopen its side of the crossing until the Gaza side is returned to Palestinian control.
Six of the children were transferred to the Nasser Hospital from Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City earlier this week. Five have malignant cases of cancer and one suffers from metabolic syndrome. That evacuation was organized by the World Health Organization, which could not immediately be reached for comment.
At a press conference at Nasser Hospital on Thursday, Dr. Mohammed Zaqout, the head of Gaza’s hospitals, said the evacuation of the 21 children was being done in coordination with the World Health Organization and three American charities.
Zaqout said over 25,000 patients in Gaza require treatment abroad, including some 980 children with cancer, a quarter of whom need “urgent and immediate evacuation.”
He said the cases included in Thursday’s evacuation are “a drop in the ocean” and that the complicated route through Kerem Shalom and into Egypt cannot serve as an alternative to the Rafah crossing.
At Nasser Hospital earlier on Thursday, many of the families appeared anxious. Most relatives had to stay behind, and even those allowed to accompany the patients did not know their final destination.
Nour Abu Zahri wept as he kissed his young daughter goodbye. The girl has severe burns on her head from an apparent Israeli airstrike. He said he didn’t get clearance to leave Gaza with her, though her mother did.
“It’s been almost 10 months, and there is no solution for the hospitals here,” he said.
Kamela Abukweik burst into tears after her son got on the bus heading to the crossing with her mother. Neither she nor her husband were cleared to leave.
“He has tumors spread all over his body and we don’t know what the reason is. And he constantly has a fever,” she said. “I still don’t know where he is going.”
War broke out following the terror group Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, which saw terrorists kill some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnap 251.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 37,500 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 15,000 combatants in battle and some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 attack.
