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01-08-2024
GAZA CITY: Injured and critically ill Palestinians are on their way from Gaza to the United Arab Emirates for treatment, the World Health Organization (WHO) says, in the largest single medical evacuation since the war began following the brutal Hamas attack on southern Israel on 7 October.
Later on Tuesday the WHO said 85 sick and severely injured patients from Gaza had been evacuated to Abu Dhabi.
The sweeping Israeli military operations that followed have wrecked Gaza’s healthcare system.
And the main route for medical evacuees through Gaza’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt was shut down after the Israeli military took control there in early May.
The WHO says so far some 5,000 Gazans have received treatment outside of the territory, but another 10,000 still need to leave.
This latest group began to gather on Sunday at pickup points for transport to a central location before departing.
In the central city of Deir al-Balah the bus station was crowded with patients and their families.
“I call on the whole world to look at us with compassion,” said Shaza Abu Selim, who was pushing her daughter, Lamis, in a wheelchair. The young girl needs major surgery for scoliosis, which has been delayed now by six months. She barely moved, her face stained with tears and exhaustion.
“I could not believe it when they contacted me [to say] that my daughter was among those on the list going outside Gaza for treatment,” said her mother. “I do not know when the war will end… and may God make it easy and heal everyone.”
Even before the conflict some Gazans got care outside the territory because the health system wasn’t equipped to deal with complex medical conditions.
But Israeli bombardments have closed hospitals, killed doctors, blocked medicines, and overwhelmed remaining facilities with casualties.
Nasima al-Ajeel’s story encapsulates the misery and desperation this has caused.
“We were struck” she says. “My eldest son was killed, my father was killed, my youngest son, Asser, lost his sight.”
Ms al-Ajeel is sitting and holding little Asser, his eyelid closed over an empty socket. Her leg is wrapped in bandages.
“His left eye was blown out with a skull fracture,” she said. “My middle son suffers from a leg injury and leg deformities, and I suffer a skull fracture, blindness in my left eye, and a broken shoulder and ribs.”
The Israeli army says it has discovered Hamas combatants and infrastructure inside hospitals and health clinics, something the militant Islamist movement, which controlled Gaza before the war, denies.
But human rights activists have accused Israel of obstructing medical evacuations.
Physicians for Human Rights in Israel and other groups filed a petition in Israel’s High Court of Justice in early June after the Rafah crossing was closed.
Since Israeli forces captured the border area at the start of their ground operation there two months ago, Egypt has refused to reopen the crossing, the only route out of Gaza that does not lead into Israel and previously a main exit point for fleeing civilians and a major channel for aid.
Egyptian officials have insisted that the Gazan side of the crossing must be returned to Palestinian control.
As a result of the court action, the Israeli government committed to establishing a permanent mechanism for allowing regular medical evacuations. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
