Netanyahu said to freeze plan to send sick Gazan children abroad after Golan attack
Move reportedly comes after 12 children and teens were killed in Hezbollah’s rocket attack on Majdal Shams in the North on Saturday
A plan to send some 150 sick Gazan children abroad to receive medical treatment was postponed in the wake of the deadly Hezbollah strike on the Golan that killed 12 kids and teens, the Kan public broadcaster reported on Sunday.
The report said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who earlier this month vetoed Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s decision to treat the children at a field hospital near the Israel-Gaza border, has now ordered the move frozen for the time being.
Hezbollah in Lebanon has been attacking Israel since the day after the October 7 onslaught by Hamas-led terrorists from Gaza, saying it was acting in solidarity with the Palestinians.
The Kan report said the kids had been prepared to be flown out on Monday afternoon from the Ramon airbase to the United Arab Emirates.
There was no immediate comment from Netanyahu’s office.
Gallant said earlier this month that the field hospital he wanted to establish in Israel was to make up for the lack of movement between Gaza and Egypt due to the extended closure of Gaza’s Rafah Crossing into Egypt, which Gazans had previously used in order to travel overseas for medical treatment.
However, the hospital caused a public spat between him and Netanyahu after the prime minister said he was vetoing the hospital shortly after Gallant’s announcement.
Ultimately, the plan was made to send the children abroad by way of Israel, instead of treating them in an Israeli field hospital.
The military coordinated the establishment of several field hospitals run by other countries inside Gaza during the war, as well as floating hospitals in the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Egypt’s Sinai, to treat Gazans in need.
Israel has not brought injured Gazans into its hospitals since the beginning of the war, though sick children who were admitted before October 7 remain in the country.
The war in Gaza broke out on October 7 with Hamas’s unprecedented shock attack on Israel in which terrorists murdered some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostages.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 39,000 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.
Since October 8, Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis, with the group saying it is doing so to support Gaza during the war there.
So far, the skirmishes have resulted in 24 civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of 18 IDF soldiers and reservists. There have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.
Saturday’s rocket attack from Hezbollah was the deadliest attack for Israel in the North since the beginning of the conflict.
Hezbollah has named 381 members who have been killed by Israel during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria. In Lebanon, another 68 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and dozens of civilians have been killed.
