KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Twenty-one seriously ill children were expected to leave Gaza on Thursday in the first medical evacuation since the territory’s only travel corridor was closed in early May, Palestinian officials said.
The nearly nine-month war between Israel and Hamas has devastated Gaza’s health sector and forced most hospitals to close. Health officials say thousands of people need medical treatment abroad, including hundreds of urgent cases.
Relatives said a tearful farewell to the children as they and their companions left Nasser Hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis on their way to the Kerem Shalom cargo crossing with Israel. It was not clear where they would be treated. The Israeli military agency that coordinates civilian affairs in Gaza did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt, the only one where people can travel in or out, was closed after Israeli forces captured it early last month during their operation in the city. Egypt has refused to reopen its side of the crossing until the Gaza side is back under Palestinian control.
Six of the children were transferred to 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 was not immediately available 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 carried out in coordination with the WHO and three US charities.
Zaqout said more than 25,000 patients in Gaza require treatment abroad, including about 980 children with cancer, a quarter of whom require “urgent and immediate evacuation.”
He said the cases involved in Thursday’s evacuation are “a drop in the ocean” and that the complicated route through Kerem Shalom to Egypt cannot serve as an alternative to the Rafah crossing.
At Nasser Hospital earlier on Thursday, many families seemed worried. Most family members had to stay behind and even those who were 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 serious burns to her head as a result of an Israeli airstrike. He said he had not been given permission to leave Gaza with her, while her mother had.
“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 boarded the bus with her mother towards the intersection. Neither she nor her husband were given permission to leave.
“He has tumors spread all over his body and we don’t know what the reason is. And he has a fever all the time,” she said. “I still don’t know where he’s going.”
In a post on the social media platform . Of the 13,872 people who have requested medical evacuation since October 7, only 35% have been evacuated.”
“Medical evacuation corridors must be urgently established for the sustainable, organized, safe and timely passage of seriously ill patients from Gaza through all possible routes,” she said.
The Israeli offensive against Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, has killed more than 37,700 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and fighters in its count. Thousands of women and children are among the dead.
The war started with Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel on October 7during which militants killed about 1,200 people and took another 250 hostage.
On Thursday, the Israeli army ordered new evacuations from Gaza City neighborhoods that had been heavily bombed and largely emptied early in the war. The latest orders apply to Shijaiyah and other neighborhoods where residents reported heavy bombings on Thursday.
Gaza Civil Defense first responders said airstrikes hit five houses, killing at least three people and wounding another six. Rescuers were still searching the rubble for survivors.
Gaza City was heavily bombed in the first weeks of the war. Israel ordered the evacuation of all of northern Gaza, including the area’s largest city, later that month. Hundreds of thousands of people have remained in the north even as Israeli forces have surrounded and largely isolated it.
Residents of Shijaiyah shared videos in a message group showing large numbers of people fleeing the neighborhood on foot with their belongings in their arms.
International criticism of the Israeli campaign against Hamas, which affects the Palestinians, is growing severe and widespread hunger. The eight-month war has largely cut off the flow of refugees food, medicine and basic goods to Gaza, and the people there are now completely dependent on aid. The United Nations highest court has concluded that there is a “plausible risk of genocide” in Gaza – an accusation that Israel strongly denies.
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Shurafa reported from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip and Chehayeb from Beirut.
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