Wounded and sick children leave besieged Gaza Strip, in first medical evacuation for weeks
CNN
Dozens of sick and injured children, including 20 cancer patients, have been evacuated from Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing, the first to leave since Israel launched its offensive in Rafah last month.
Dozens of sick and injured children, including 20 cancer patients, have been evacuated from Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing, the first to leave since Israel launched its offensive in Rafah last month. The 68 were transferred to Cairo, Egypt, on Thursday, Israeli authorities say. COGAT, the Israeli agency responsible for approving aid into Gaza, coordinated the passage along with the Israeli military, the US, Egypt and the World Health Organization (WHO). The news provided a moment of relief for the parents, whose children who had been unable to access lifesaving care after more than eight months of Israeli bombardment in Gaza. “It was a tough time for us in northern Gaza, nine months of exhaustion, displacement,” Samira Al-Saeedi, whose six-year-old daughter Jouri was evacuated, told CNN earlier this week. “People started stealing just to eat… Sick children cannot withstand famine.” CNN footage from Nasser Hospital on Tuesday showed another evacuee – five-year-old blood cancer patient Yasmin – squirming in pain, her emaciated limbs sprawled on a teal mattress. “She is suffering and moving between hospitals receiving blood treatments… Every day she feels more pain than the day before,” said her mother Umm Ubaida. “She is extremely tired. She can’t wait any longer.”