Israel and Egypt agreed Thursday to allow at least 19 sick children, most of them suffering from cancer, to leave Gaza for medical treatment, Israeli and Palestinian officials said, in the first major evacuation of seriously ill Gazans since the closure of the Rafah border post in 2017. in early May.
The Israeli military said the operation was carried out in coordination with the United States, Egypt and the international community. A total of 68 people – sick and injured patients and their companions – were allowed to leave, the army said.
According to the World Health Organization, more than 10,000 sick and injured people in Gaza need emergency care that is only available outside the enclave. said this week. These include those injured in airstrikes, as well as cancer patients, children with life-threatening illnesses and elderly people requiring open-heart surgery.
Even before the war, many Gazans were forced to travel abroad to receive life-saving treatments, such as chemotherapy, which were virtually nonexistent in the Gaza Strip. The enclave’s health sector has been struggling for more than 15 years under a crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade aimed at containing Hamas.
But the main passage through which Gazans could leave the Gaza Strip – the Rafah crossing with Egypt – was closed after Israeli forces took control of the border in May in a military offensive. Egypt closed its side of the crossing in protest, and the Gazan side was later destroyed in a fire, according to the Israeli military, which appears to have dashed hopes of reopening the crossing in the near future.
At least two sick Gazans who were due to leave in early May have died, family members said.
With the Rafah crossing closed, the group of children evacuated on Thursday were taken into Israeli territory via another border crossing, Kerem Shalom, before being taken to Egypt. The move does not appear to immediately herald a new permanent route for seriously ill children to leave Gaza safely.
One of the children who made the crossing on Thursday was a 10-month-old girl named Sadeel Hamdan.
For months, her family watched with growing anxiety as Sadeel’s health deteriorated. Her belly was swelling like a balloon due to severe liver failure and she desperately needed a transplant, said her father, Tamer Hamdan.
On Thursday morning, after weeks of waiting, Mr. Hamdan and Sadeel were finally allowed to leave the enclave. After entering Israel, they were transported with other patients to Nitzana, an Israeli village, from where they crossed into Egyptian territory, he said.
“Thank God,” Mr. Hamdan said, reached by telephone while sitting on a bus on the Egyptian side of the checkpoint. “We are so happy to have Sadeel out safely. All we have to do now is finish his treatment. »
Their departure from Gaza, however, was bittersweet.
Mr Hamdan travelled with his daughter so he could donate part of her liver, but his wife and three other children were not allowed to accompany them. He said he feared for their fate in Gaza.
“We are all heading into the unknown,” he said.
