Agencies
Geneva/Gaza
The World Health Organization (WHO) says it plans to evacuate more than 100 patients from the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, announcing the first such operation in the embattled Palestinian territory in about five weeks.
The evacuees will include those injured in the ongoing Gaza war as well as chronically-ill patients, the WHO said. Initially, patients will be brought to Egypt via the southern border crossing of Kerem Shalom and Israel.
Most are then to be flown to the United Arab Emirates, said Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative in the Palestinian territories, in a video conference. About 30 people will be transported to Romania, he added.
Since the closure Gaza’s border crossing with Egypt in the southern city of Rafah at the beginning of May, only 282 patients have been brought out of the Gaza Strip, Peeperkorn said. However, between 12,000 and 14,000 additional patients, who suffer from burns, spinal injuries, amputations or cancer, among others ailments, also need to be treated abroad, he said.
The WHO representative called on Israel to give security guarantees to enable the permanent transfer of patients, instead of occasional medical evacuations. "We cannot continue the way we do now,” Peeperkorn said.
Meanwhile, at least 54 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since dawn, medical sources have said. Israeli forces have attacked Kamal Adwan Hospital in north Gaza for a second day, injuring medical staff and patients, including newborn babies at the facility’s nursery. At least 54 people have been killed in Israeli attacks across various areas of the Gaza Strip since dawn, according to medical sources who spoke with Al Jazeera Arabic.
Of those, 39 were in northern Gaza, where Israel launched a major air and ground assault about a month ago. Dr Hossam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, has shared a live video documenting Israel’s bombardment of the medical facility in northern Gaza, which instilled panic and fear among patients and staff. The video was posted on Abu Safiya’s Instagram account. It captures the upper floor of the hospital being bombed by Israeli forces with nurses and wounded patients fleeing as the bombardment intensifies.
"Patients and children run amid the Israeli occupation bombing the hospital and water tanks! As if the siege is not enough and patients and doctors must die of thirst,” Abu Safiya wrote. Kamal Adwan Hospital is the last functioning hospital in besieged northern Gaza.