UN warns Gaza residents are dying as medical evacuations stop
United Nations agencies warn that medical evacuations from conflict-ridden Gaza have essentially dried up, putting at risk the lives of thousands of people, including children, with serious illnesses and injuries because they are unable to get the treatment they need.
"Children are being medically evacuated from Gaza at fewer than one child per day. If this lethally slow pace continues, it would take more than seven years to evacuate the 2,500 children needing urgent medical care," UNICEF spokesperson James Elder told journalists Friday in Geneva."As a result, children in Gaza are dying," he said, noting that even when "miracles happen" and children survive the bombs, bullets and shells, "they are then prevented from leaving Gaza to receive the urgent care that would save their lives."
The World Health Organization reports 15,600 patients require urgent medical evacuations, with only 5,138 evacuated so far. Nearly half of them had cancer, 40% had war injuries, and 200 had kidney diseases. The WHO says only 231 patients have been evacuated since May 7.
UNICEF spokesperson Elder said that an average of 296 children were medically evacuated each month from January to May 7. Since the Rafah crossing closed on May 7 because of the ground offensive there, he said "the number of children medically evacuated has collapsed to just 22 per month."
"That is, just 127 children, many suffering from head trauma, amputations, burns, cancer, and severe malnutrition, have been allowed to leave since Rafah closed," he said.
Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative for occupied Palestinian Territory, agreed that this situation cries out for "a proper medevac structure out of Gaza, an organized structure."
On a video link from Gaza, he recalled that before the crisis erupted a year ago, between 50 and 100 patients daily were referred from Gaza to East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and "those were 40% oncology cases — children, women and men with cancer — but also cardiovascular and all kinds of other diseases."
Between 12,000 and 14,000 critical patients must be medevaced outside Gaza, Peeperkorn said, "and we are constantly pushing for that."
"We want medical corridors. What would be needed would be to restore the traditional medical corridor, which is, of course, to the hospitals in East Jerusalem and West Bank, and they are very much ready to receive patients from Gaza," he said.
Peeperkorn said WHO always tries to prioritize children, who comprise at least one-third of patients on a medevac list, which subsequently goes through a security screening.
"It is really painful to see that many of these patients, which are on this list are not approved, including children," he said, adding there is "no explanation from Israeli authorities on why an evacuation is not granted."
Elder agreed with that assessment, noting that Israeli authorities do not say when applications for medical evacuations are declined, and "does not provide reasons for refusals."
"It is not known how many child patients have been rejected for medevac," he said. "Only a list of approved patients is provided by Israel's COGAT, which controls Gaza's entry and exit points. The status of others is not shared. When a patient is denied, there is nothing that can be done."
COGAT, the Israeli military body responsible for Palestinian civilian issues including medical evacuations from Gaza, has not commented on the question of evacuations.
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