WHO pleads for Gaza's sick and injured to receive treatment abroad

UN's health agency hoping for change in Israel's policy on aid entry

Mourners gather at Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza city by the bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire after crossing the ceasefire line. AP

The UN's health agency has called for more access routes into Gaza and urged that thousands of people in great need of medical care be allowed to leave the Palestinian territory.

More than 68,000 Gazans have been killed and 170,000 wounded since Israel began military operations in the enclave following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks, in which 1,200 people were killed and around 250 taken hostage.

A ceasefire, brokered by American, Qatari, Egyptian and Turkish mediators, was reached this month. While it is largely holding, it has been strained by a flare-up of violence in Gaza, disputes over the exchange of dead Israelis and Palestinians, and mutual distrust between Israel and Hamas.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has supported the medical evacuation of nearly 7,800 patients from the Gaza Strip since the war began – and estimates that about 15,000 people currently require treatment abroad.

“Opening up all the crossings is critical and even more so to get diverse food, shelter and all shelter-related items with the winter approaching,” the WHO's representative in the Palestinian territories Rik Peeperkorn said on Friday, in a briefing to reporters from Geneva.

Only the Karam Abu Salem and Kissufim crossings in the southern half of the strip are currently open. Rafah, a vital passenger crossing bordering Egypt, remains closed. Now that the ceasefire is in place, aid should be allowed to flow in freely, but the World Food Programme has said that this is not yet happening.

“The most important one would be the reopening of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem referral hospitals,” Mr Peeperkorn said. Reopening this route would be a “game changer”, he added.

He said limiting direct access to the north of the strip, where the UN declared a famine in August, makes it difficult to deliver life-saving supplies to health facilities at the scale required.

Gaza only has a total of about 2,100 inpatient beds for a population of around 2.2 million, he said, emphasising the need to expand hospital capacity. Several major health facilities, including Kamal Adwan, Al Awda, Indonesian and Gaza European hospitals, are beyond the “yellow line” where Israeli forces are positioned and have shot Palestinians attempting to cross the ill-marked boundary.

This makes the facilities “inaccessible for people and non-functional”, Mr Peeperkorn said. With more than 170,000 people injured over the last two years, many critical patients need access to treatment abroad, including 4,000 children who need medical evacuation, he added.

The ruins of the Al Rantisi children's hospital in Gaza city, which was destroyed during the Israeli air and ground offensive. AP Photo

On Thursday, the WHO carried out the first medical evacuation since the ceasefire, of 41 patients and 145 companions, to various countries. The aim is to increase these to 50 patients per day plus companions.

As part of the ceasefire agreement, a Civil-Military Co-ordination Centre opened by US Central Command (Centcom) in southern Israel on October 17 hosted meetings between the UN and Israeli authorities.

Mr Peeperkorn said he was “hopeful” and the mechanism set to be put in place for aid entry should not only ensure assistance is brought in rapidly but also help in bringing in “massive supplies for recovery and reconstruction”.

He said work is being done towards shortening delays for aid heading into Gaza – an issue that has been reported as a deterrent against bringing in large amounts.

UN officials had previously told The National that the list of approved items keeps changing and vital supplies such as tents and medical kits are often turned away from the border under the pretext of being “dual-use”.

At least nine in 10 Palestinians in Gaza have been repeatedly displaced over the past two years, and 80 per cent of Gaza had been destroyed – leaving a majority of people homeless and in need of shelter.

“We made a consolidated list of essential medicines and medical supplies … priority items which are used in every hospital around the world,” said Mr Peeperkorn. He is hoping for a “completely different approach” towards the so-called dual-use issue.

“We need CAT scans in, we need spare parts in, we need MRIs in, we need X-rays in, we need ultrasounds in,” he said. All of these items had previously been delayed or blocked from entry, the WHO official added, but he hoped this would change in the future.

“We all know that this will be a long and winding road, with a lot of setbacks and obstructions, but we can only be hopeful that this ceasefire will hold, that we go to peace and we get to a proper political solution,” said Mr Peeperkorn.