WHO official: Rafah closure preventing at least 2,000 medical evacuations from Gaza

An ambulance carrying bodies of the foreign humanitarian aid workers killed in a recent Israeli airstrike in Gaza crosses the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, Wednesday, April 3, 2024. (Ahmed Abudraa/AP)
An ambulance carrying bodies of the foreign humanitarian aid workers killed in a recent Israeli airstrike in Gaza crosses the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, Wednesday, April 3, 2024. (Ahmed Abudraa/AP)

CAIRO — The closure of the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza has prevented the medical evacuations of at least 2,000 patients, a World Health Organization official says, calling for Rafah and other routes to be reopened.

Before the closure, “approximately 50 critical patients a day left Gaza … It means that since the 7th of May at least 2,000 people have been unable to leave Gaza to receive medical care,” says Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative in the West Bank and Gaza.

The Rafah crossing was the main conduit for evacuations as well as for humanitarian aid earlier in the war that was started by Hamas’s October 7 attack against Israel. It was shut when Israel launched an operation on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip in May, with Egypt refusing to reopen the crossing until Israeli troops withdraw and a Palestinian presence is restored.

The United States, Egypt and Qatar held talks late last week aimed at re-opening the crossing and increasing humanitarian aid flows, according to Egyptian security sources, though Rafah remains closed, with a report earlier today saying Cairo refused a proposal from Jerusalem for evacuating sick Palestinians from the enclave.

Movement through the nearby Kerem Shalom Crossing between Israel and Gaza, which Peeperkorn describes as unsafe, has been impeded by insecurity and logistical challenges.

At least 10,000 people are in need of evacuation from Gaza, Peeperkorn says, adding that this is an underestimate of the number needing critical care for both war traumas and chronic diseases.

“We need more routes for medical emergency evacuation (medevac), we would like to see Kerem Shalom and other routes also opened for medevac where patients can then be referred to the referral hospitals in East Jerusalem and the West Bank,” Peeperkorn says.

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