Families bid tearful goodbye as 21 critically ill kids leave Gaza for treatment abroad

Families bid a tearful goodbye as 21 critically ill children were set to exit Gaza for treatment abroad on Thursday. It’s the first medical evacuation since the territory’s sole travel crossing shut down in early May after Israeli forces captured it, Palestinian officials say.

The kids and their adult escorts left Nasser Hospital in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis bound for the Kerem Shalom cargo crossing with Israel. It was not clear where they would receive treatment.

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.”

The nearly nine-month Israel-Hamas war has devastated Gaza’s health sector and forced most of its hospitals to shut down. Dr Mohammed Zaqout, the head of Gaza’s hospitals, said over 25,000 patients require treatment abroad, including some 980 children with cancer, a quarter of whom need "urgent and immediate evacuation.”

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 Heath Organization and three American charities.

Zaqout said over 25,000 patients in Gaza require treatment abroad, 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.

The Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, the only one available for people to travel in or out, shut down after Israeli forces 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 organised by the World Health Organisation, which could not immediately be reached for comment.

International criticism is growing over Israel’s campaign against Hamas as Palestinians face severe and widespread hunger. The eight-month war has largely cut off the flow of food, medicine and basic goods to Gaza, and people there are now totally dependent on aid. The top United Nations court has concluded there is a "plausible risk of genocide” in Gaza — a charge Israel strongly denies.

Associated Press